


a royal nuisance

by orphan_account



Category: Fairy Tail
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Royalty, F/M, Modern Royalty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-14 07:18:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5734516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“and you didn’t think it necessary to mention, at any point, that you’re a bloody Prince?!”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so, modern royal au? modern royal au! short first chapter but they’ll most likely be longer than this after. also this probably won’t be a very long fic - i don’t think more than 10 chapters (maybe less)? 
> 
> anyway, please make a girl happy and review xo

She awoke to the sound of frantic knocking on her bedroom door which wasn’t exactly desirable considering she had given both her roommates _explicit_ orders not to wake her unless their house was on fire. And even then she was open to being left to smoulder if it meant she could finally get a lie-in.

“Leave me _alone_ ,” she grumbled loudly over the insistent knocking, trying to burrow herself under her blankets even more than she already was. Was it _really_ too much to ask that she be allowed to sleep in just one day of the week? Apparently it was, because just two seconds later, they burst into her room and she made a mental note to get the landlord to install a lock on her door - and then maybe add in a few booby traps just in case they managed to get in anyway.

“This house better be on fire,” she muttered, reluctantly tugging her blankets and pillows away from her body to glare at Jet and Droy, her two roommates and best friends (though, considering how early they’d woken her that morning, she couldn’t guarantee she’d be calling them that for much longer). Still, at least they had the decency to look somewhat apologetic.

Droy was sat perched on the edge of her bed, while Jet was stood by her window, peering surreptitiously out from behind her curtains every now and then.

“Well?” she asked, “ _is_ the house on fire? Did we get robbed? Are we _about_ to get robbed?” Her body protested her every move, still ridiculously tired from working four late shifts in a row and that was on top of the amount of studying she had to do every night, but she forced herself to sit upright, crossing her arms over her chest to glare at her boys. Not that it did much good, they’d both become somewhat immune to her rather half-hearted glares over the years.

“Have you _seen_ what’s going on outside?” Jet asked, his eyes wide as he continued to peer out of her bedroom window, “it’s like a circus out there.”

“You woke me up on my _one_ morning off, to get me to look out of the _window_?”

Droy nodded and at that moment Levy decided she was going to kill them both. Painfully. After they were gone, maybe she’d be able to get new roommates who would let her sleep in and didn’t leave their boxers lying on the bathroom floor.

“OK, if you could stop plotting our demise for two seconds,” Droy said slowly, apparently sensing the waves of annoyance rolling off her, “just go and look.”

Still glaring daggers at her roommate, she swept her blankets aside and reluctantly got out of bed before padding quickly towards the window. By her calculations, she’d been awake for less than five minutes and she figured if she could get Jet and Droy out of her room within the next two minutes, she’d still be drowsy enough to be able to fall back asleep with minimal effort. With a new spring in her step, she shoved Jet out of the way and pulled back her curtains to see what all the fuss was about.

“What’re you guys ta- _woah_ ,” her eyes widened in shock as she took in the hoard of people milling around their street. People were pacing the street; some of them taking pictures with their phones, others murmuring to themselves or stopping their neighbours whenever someone emerged from their home. She could even spot a camera crew or two, and she thought she even recognised some of the people as reporters.

“What the hell is going on?” she asked, pulling away from the curtain to turn back to Jet and Droy.

“We don’t know!” Jet said, looking far too excited for his own good, “we just woke up and saw it all.”

“ _I_ think something bad must’ve happened,” Droy said sagely, hopping up from his seat on Levy’s bed to make his way to the window to peer out again, “look! There’s _Jason_ , you know, from Sorcerer Magazine? He only comes out for the big things. Like, I don’t know, a kidnapping or a murder or-”

“ _Honestly_ ,” Levy snorted, tugging them both away from the window, “nothing like that would’ve happened on _our_ street. And besides, if it were anything criminal, there’d be police outside.”

“OK, so what do _you_ think is going on?”

“Have either of you thought to check the news?”

If she wasn’t dangerously close to running out of her allocated two minutes to get them out of her room and get back to sleep, she might’ve laughed at the look that flitted across both of their faces upon hearing her suggestion. But she was tired, and cranky and could feel herself waking up properly, so she didn’t have time to laugh at the fact neither of them had considered checking the news before rudely waking her up, instead she simply sighed, turned on her heel and marched towards their living room. She would get her revenge later, _after_ she’d returned to her slumber and got those ten hours of sleep she deserved.

Already daydreaming about diving under her blankets and succumbing to sleep once again, she turned their old TV on and quickly began flicking through the news channels, looking for something that looked like a shot of their street.

“There!” Droy exclaimed, stopping Levy so she didn’t click past the channel, “it’s our street!”  

“It looks weird on TV,” she mused as she watched the reporters milling around, trying to find someone to interview, “I wonder that’s go-”

Levy trailed off, freezing as the screen switched from a shot of the reporters to some photographs. She felt her heart stop and then restart again, only to begin beating at a speed she figured was probably extremely dangerous. There, staring her right in the face, was a photograph of _her_ . She felt something tighten in her chest as the camera panned out to reveal more of the photograph. Dressed in a coat that was several sizes too big for her, and in the arms of the owner of said coat, she immediately knew exactly when the photograph had been taken. And she had a _horrible_ feeling she knew what was coming next.

The screen flickered slightly and another photograph was shown.

“Levy...what the _fuck_ ?” Jet and Droy said in unison, but she couldn’t bring herself to turn and face them. She was too busy staring at the photograph of her with her arms around the neck of a man, while she was _kissing_ him.

And as if that wasn’t bad enough.

The screen flickered again, bringing up another photograph. _This_ one, she hadn’t been expecting. Unlike the others, this one was taken in the early morning, and was of her leaving an apartment, still wrapped in the giant coat.

“Levy? What the hell is goi-”

She _ssh-ed_ them both as she slid onto the sofa, trying to stop herself from hyperventilating. What the hell was happening? _Why_ was this happening to _her_ of all people? Who the _fuck_ took those pictures? And, most importantly, _why_?

The screen flickered again, this time switching to a reporter who had been stationed outside their home.

“There you have it,” the reporter said, smiling slyly up at the camera, “it’s the biggest scandal to hit the Fioran Royal Family in _years_.”

Levy frowned as she listened to the reporter speak. Either the reporter had misspoken or she had misheard because, she _definitely_ didn’t have anything to do with the Fioran Royal Family. Hell, she wasn’t even _aware_ Fiore _had_ a Royal Family.

“These images of Gajeel Redfox, Crown Prince of Fiore, spending the night with a thus unnamed woman are sure to throw the already unstable monar-”

“Levy, what the hell is going on?” Jet asked again, standing in front of the TV with a look of worry and confusion on his face that Levy figured probably matched her own, “who _is_ that guy?”

“Ah well,” she cleared her throat and tried _desperately_ not to look either Jet or Droy in the eye, “that would be my boyfriend.”

“Your _boyfriend_?”

“Yes,” she mumbled, still avoiding all eye contact with either man. This was _definitely_ not how she planned on informing them of the change in her relationship status, “and, as it turns out, he’s also apparently the Crown Prince of Fiore. So…” she shrugged, and tried to shoot them both a confident smile, “there’s that.”


	2. Chapter 2

“‘Go and study in Pergrande’, he said. ‘Your mother and I _both_ did’, he said. ‘It’ll be good for you’, he said!”

“Well, in his defence, you _were_ enjoying it up until now.”

“ _T_ _hanks_ Natsu,” Gajeel drawled, “that’s _really_ what I needed to hear right now.”

“You’re welcome, bro.”

At that moment, Gajeel couldn’t help but wonder if his uncle would be terribly upset if his only son ‘mysteriously’ disappeared. Luckily for Natsu, he had bigger things to deal with - namely, the fact that images of him kissing his girlfriend had been plastered all over the news without so much as a word of warning. So, in the grand scheme of things, Natsu’s complete and utter lack of ability to read the atmosphere was really not on the top of his list of things to sort out.

His phone pinged several times in his lap and he had to resist the urge not the wind down the window of their car and chuck it out. From the moment he’d woken that morning (by Lily tearing his blankets away from him and practically frog marching him to sit in front of the TV), his phone hadn’t stopped alerting him to another missed call or a series of confused text messages from anyone from close family members to some random kid he’d sat next to in class that one time six months ago.

He groaned as his phone lit up again before quickly shutting it off and ramming it into his pocket. This was not how things were supposed to go. The whole point of going to study in Pergrande was that he was _supposed_ to get the chance to have a normal education. Back home in Fiore, his face was too well known and, because of that, he’d spent his formative years being homeschooled. That in itself wasn’t so bad; he’d alway considered himself lucky that he’d grown up alongside his cousins so it wasn’t like he was lacking good company, but his parents firmly believed he should be able to experience a normal upbringing as possible. Or, as normal as you could get if you were the Crown Prince and destined for the throne one day.

Which was why they’d bundled him off to Pergrande for university, in the hopes that living in a country where his face was relatively unknown would allow him to live, for at least a few years, in normalcy. And, for the most part, their plan had worked. He’d been spotted only once or twice by vacationing Fiorans and they had been easily placated with a quick photograph and a polite, but stern, word from Lily asking if they wouldn’t mind not mentioning who’d they seen for the duration of their holiday.

For Gajeel, it was like a breath of fresh air. For the first time in his life, he was able to leave his home without pushing through a mini army of paparazzi, all of them armed with microphones and cameras and ridiculously invasive questions. He could eat at a restaurant and not have to ask for a secluded booth because there was a small trail of people standing outside, all of them eager to get a shot of the Crown Prince spilling spaghetti on his shirt or something equally annoying. He could go to a _bar_ and not have his face plastered over the the front pages the next day with unfounded accusations and words like ‘ _PRINCE GONE WILD_ ’ dominating the headlines.

For the first time in his life, he felt _normal_ , and he couldn’t deny he was very much enjoying it. This newfound sense of freedom was opening more doors for him than any crown could. He found it was much easier to talk to people and make friends when they weren’t aware of his title or standing the world. People liked him for _him_ and not for his money or fame or reputation and it was very refreshing feeling.

It was... _nice_...being able to trust people again. It had even given him the opportunity to start dating, something he’d honestly never thought he’d do.

“Have you spoken to Miss McGarden?” Lily asked from the driver’s seat and, not for the first time, Gajeel wondered if the man could read his mind, “I imagine she’s probably very confused, right now.”

Natsu snorted, “that’s an understatement.”

“Once again, _thanks_ Natsu,” Gajeel grumbled, resisting the urge to kick his cousin in the shins, “and no, I haven’t. Every time I touch my phone, another twenty people start calling me. Just…just drive faster,” he sighed, leaning against the door to glare to out of the window.

As much as this was a horrible situation for him to be in, he couldn’t imagine how it must’ve felt for _her_ . He, at least, was somewhat used to this kind of shit and although you never _quite_ got completely used to the invasion of privacy he figured he was probably capable of dealing with it a tiny bit better than she.

“How the hell did this even happen?” Natsu asked, “and _when_ did you get a girlfriend? And who is she? Because I need to meet this saint who ap-”

“I swear to _God_ , I’m two more words away from throwing you out of this car.”

“Like you need another scandal,” Natsu laughed, calling Gajeel’s bluff, “I can just imagine the headlines now: The Crown Prince of Fiore brutally murders his _favourite_ , and most attractive, cousin in a fit of rage.”

“You are _not_ my favourite.”

“OK, second favourite. I forgot about Wendy.”

Gajeel was about to argue that with the way Natsu was acting, Cobra had been bumped up two spots and was now his second favourite cousin, but he could feel their car slowing down as they approached a residential area.

“Shit,” he murmured as he poked his head out the window, “it’s worse than I thought.”

The street was packed, full of onlookers and reporters and several camera crews all lolling around outside her home, waiting to get a snap of the girl ‘who had captured the Prince’s heart’ as one newspaper had so helpfully put it.

Lily sighed as he parked the car just far away enough that their presence wouldn’t be noticed, before swivelling around in his seat, “any plans?”

“We could go round the back?” Gajeel suggested, knowing full well that if they even attempted to walk up to her place from the front, they’d be bombarded by the press and not even Lily’s stocky stature would be enough to protect them. At times like this, he really wished Laxus was around more often. His oldest cousin had perfected this weird sort of grimace that seemed to frighten the paparazzi more than any threats of lawsuits or calling the police, and Gajeel was oddly jealous of it. What he wouldn’t give to send the press running with just a quirk of the brows or a quiet snarl.

Lily hummed quietly, scratching at his light beard, “I suppose that could work. There’s still a chance they’d see us though.”

“Ahem,” Natsu cleared his throat suddenly and shot them both a look of feigned disappointment, “I can’t believe you’re both forgetting that you are sitting here with Natsu Dragneel, the Prince of Diversions.”

Despite himself, Gajeel couldn’t stop his lips from curling upwards ever so slightly as he stared at his cousin.

Growing up, they’d gotten themselves into a fair few sticky situations that, if the press had found out, would have resulted in some rather difficult headlines for the Royal Family. Luckily, that was where Natsu came in. The man had a strange knack for creating, quite frankly, _ridiculous_ diversions that the press would eat up, allowing him (and whichever other cousins had been dragged into their mess) the chance to escape and not have their most recent fuck-up make the 10 o’clock news.

“What do you have in mind?” he asked.

“Ah,” Natsu grinned, and Gajeel couldn’t help wonder if he should be worried or not, “you’ll find out soon enough.”

* * *

 

Her phone wouldn’t stop buzzing.

People she hadn’t spoken to in _years_ were calling her or sending her messages, all trying to find out what was going on, never mind that _she_ didn’t actually have any idea about what was going on in the first place. In fact, it seemed the _one_ person she _did_ want to talk to in order to shed some light on the situations was the only person who hadn’t tried to contact her - a fact that was increasingly grating on her nerves.

“Breathe, Lev,” Jet murmured, bumping her with his shoulder to jolt her hand away from her mouth - she was currently about thirty seconds away from turning the nails on her right hand into nothing but tiny little stumps.

“That’s easy for you to say, _you_ haven’t just found out your boyfriend is the frickin’ Crown Prince of Fiore!” And it didn’t make matters any easier knowing that said boyfriend wasn’t picking up her calls either. And on top of everything else, the crowd of paparazzi stationed outside their home didn’t help much either. Honestly, she felt like she was dreaming (or having a nightmare) and, once or twice when knew Jet and Droy weren’t looking, she had sneakily pinched her thigh in the hopes of waking up and finding herself back in bed.

“Well, we _have_ just found out you have a boyfriend,” Droy said pointedly, and she couldn’t help but feel just a teensy bit guilty. Sure, her problems currently outweighed _their_ problems but she did feel a bit bad for having them find out about her relationship like this. They’d been friends since they were children and there were very few secrets between them so she could only imagine how it must have felt for them to find out about something as big as thing from a reporter on the television. She figured she would’ve felt a least a tiny bit miffed if the situation had been reversed.

If she was honest with herself, she was quite surprised by their reaction. They were taking the revelation extremely well and, aside from Droy’s little quip just then, hadn’t even mentioned her relationship. Instead, once the initial shock of seeing the news report had subsided just a little, they had ran through their home, tugging curtains firmly shut and making sure every door and window was locked. Jet had even dragged their ratty old armchair out of the living room and had used it to barricade the front door shut.

While Levy was fairly certain the press couldn’t legally trespass on their property, she couldn’t deny she felt a lot safer once she knew every single possible entrance was locked. Seeing those photographs on television had been enough of a breach of privacy for one day, and she wasn’t sure if she could take much more.

“I was going to tell you guys,” she said earnestly, swinging around on the sofa so she was resting her back against the armrest and could easily drop her legs across their laps, “I just...I didn’t want to introduce you to him before I knew it was serious.”

And that wasn’t a lie. She’d been friends with both Jet and Droy for so long, she considered them something like brothers and she wasn’t about to introduce her brothers to someone she didn’t even think there might not be even the slimmest _chance_ of her having a future a with.

“Well it’s serious now, whether you like it or not,” Jet snorted, glancing up at the now mute television set, and despite the situation Levy couldn’t help but laugh dryly in agreement. Her plans of introducing Gajeel to her boys at a nice sit down dinner where they all got along just perfect were well and truly ruined.

“How’d you meet?” Droy asked, his eyes still glued to the television screen, watching to see when they’d finally reveal Levy’s name to the public and all hell would let loose.

She squirmed in her seat a little. This really wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have with either of them, especially when photographs of her kissing Gajeel were still flashing across the screen in five minute intervals, but she supposed she owed them at least that - especially considering the morning they’d been having.

“We have the same English Lit lectures,” she mumbled, once again avoiding eye contact with both of them, “nothing too interesting.”

“And um…” Jet nodded towards the TV, where the photograph of her leaving his apartment in the early hours of the morning was flashing across the screen once more, “how lon-”

“Oh _God_ , please don’t,” she wailed, burying her head in her palms. Sure, they had no real secrets between them but she really, _really,_ didn’t need to talk to either of them about her sex life. Or her lack of a sex life rather, considering they hadn’t even really done _anything_ that night, except lose track of time.

Despite herself, she couldn’t help the soft smile from tugging at her lips as she thought back to that evening just a week ago. They’d spent the night cocooned on his couch, wrapped in blankets and watching crappy movies and eating pizza and, despite the simplicity of it all, it had been one of the best dates she’d ever been on. Before she knew it, it was 3am and she had several missed calls on her phone from both Jet and Droy and although she very much wanted to spend the rest of the morning nestled on his couch, with his arms wrapped around her, she knew she had to go.

“I wasn’t going to ask you _that_ ,” Jet pulled a face and nudged her with his elbow again, “I was going to ask how long you’ve been dating.”

“Just a couple of months,” she mumbled, wincing a little as she practically _heard_ the record scratch in both of their minds.

“A couple of _months_?” they squawked in unison.

“No more than two!” Levy said quickly, counting back in her mind to try and figure out just when they’d actually started dating. He’d never officially asked her out, but at some point they had both seemed to acknowledge there had been a shift in the dynamics of their relationship, bringing them to something that was more than just friends. Their relationship had never been wholly friendly from the beginning anyway, there had always been an air of flirtatious teasing right from the moment he plonked his bag down on the seat next to hers in the lecture hall.

“And when were you planning on telling us?” Droy asked.

“Soon, I promise,” she said, hoping they would see the honesty in her eyes, “I just wanted to make sure he was...well, that you’d like him.” She trailed off slightly, frowning a little as she glanced back towards the television where the words ‘ _WHO IS THE MYSTERY WOMAN SEEING THE CROWN PRINCE OF FIORE?_ ’ were travelling across the screen in a bright red banner at the bottom. All of a sudden, she wasn’t so sure of her relationship anymore. If he could hide something like this from her, what other secrets and skeletons were in his closet he wasn’t telling her?

He was a _Prince_ , for God’s sake. It wasn’t like he’d forgotten to mention he was allergic to dogs or had an outstanding parking ticket, this was a fairly major part of his life that he had just opted to omit. And it really wasn’t like she hadn’t given him plenty of chances to bring it up. She couldn’t count the number of times they’d sat in his apartment, telling each other about their lives. She’d shared stories about growing up with Jet and Droy and told him all about her mother and he too had shared snippets of his childhood and his many cousins and the shenanigans they’d gotten up to growing up. Would it _really_ have been too hard for him just to say, ‘ _hey, have you ever heard of Fiore? A tiny country south of Pergrande? Anyway, I’m their Prince, no big deal!_ ’ during one of those conversations? Sure, it would have taken her some time to digest the new information and she wasn’t going to pretend like it wasn’t shocking, but at least then she would’ve been prepared for this mess.

With each passing second, she was growing increasingly annoyed. As if it wasn’t bad enough that he’d dumped her slap bang in the middle of this without so much as a warning about the storm that was coming her way, he wasn’t even answering his _goddamn phone_.

“Hey,” Droy said suddenly, grabbing the remote to turn the volume up on the TV, “they’re leaving.”

“They’re _what_?”

“Leaving! Look!”

Frowning, Levy craned her head backwards to get a look at the TV. The reporters and onlookers that had been focused almost entirely on their home were pointing at something off screen, hurriedly grabbing their cameras before quickly scurrying off down the road.

“Is that it?” she asked, as the screen switched back to the reporters in the studio, “is that all? Is it over? Can w-”

The sound of someone tapping on a window made her freeze. Swallowing nervously, she turned to glance at Jet and Droy, hoping that maybe she had just imagined the sound.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

“Where is that coming from?” she hissed, glancing at all the windows and exits in their living room.

_Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap._

The tapping was getting more frequent, more urgent.

“Sounds like…”

_Tap. Tap. Tap. Taptaptaptap._

“Sounds like the kitchen,” Jet said slowly, his eyes widening as he turned to Droy, “did we lock the back door?”

“I... _shit_ , I _thought_ we did but-”

_Taptaptaptaptaptap. Tap! Tap!_

“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Levy could feel something sitting in her throat, making it hard to swallow. This wasn’t happening. This wasn’t happening. Not to her! What did she do to deserve this? She was a good person wasn’t she?

“OK, don’t panic,” Droy said as he as Jet stood up, “we’ll just go and tell them to leave.”

“Yeah,” Jet said, sounding much more confident than he actually felt, “they’re trespassing. We’ll just tell them we’re going to call the police if they don’t leave. It’ll be fine.”

“You’re _sure_?” Levy asked, wondering if someone had turned up the temperature in the room because that was the only explanation she had for way her palms had begun to inexplicably sweat.

“Yeah, of course,” Jet said, shooting her one last smile before he and Droy disappeared through the door and into their kitchen area.

Not feeling entirely confident, she picked up the nearest pillow and hugged it close to her chest. She felt sick. At that moment in time she wanted nothing more than to crawl into her bed, cocoon herself in her blankets, and not reemerge for at least three weeks. She didn’t understand how any of this had happened. One minute she was a an average student, struggling to pay bills and complete her studies at the same time, the next her face and private life was all over the news as if she were some sort of celebrity.

Was that even _legal_? Were they allowed to do that to people? Belatedly, she realised she would need to give her mother a call.

Groaning a little, she tugged the pillow closer to her body, trying to use it at some sort of protection against all the crap that was going on around her. She didn’t deserve any of this. She was just trying to pass her frickin’ exams.

“Good news,” Droy called, startling her slightly as he re-entered the room, his lips pursed into a small frown,“it wasn’t the press.”

“So...what’s the bad news?” she asked.

“Well, it’s not _bad_ news, exactly,” he said, “just...unexpected.”

“Unexpected…” she trailed off as Jet re-entered the room, followed by the one person she genuinely hadn’t expected to see.

“Hey,” Gajeel mumbled as he shuffled into the room, grinning almost nervously at her, “I imagine you probably have some questions.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! 
> 
> this whole fic was essentially inspired by this prompt i saw on tumblr: “i’m a prince from a small country nobody’s heard of and i’m in college pretending not to be royal and you’re another student who’s always calling me out on my bs” so, in this fic the small country nobody’s ever heard of is ‘Fiore’ which is why Levy had no idea who Gajeel was...make sense? i don’t think that’s too farfetched especially when you consider i’ve lived in england almost all my life and had no idea who the queen’s husband was till very recently lmao
> 
> also, i’ve mentioned gajeel’s dad and natsu’s dad and his many cousins so yes this fic will heavily feature human!dragon parents/aunts/uncles and dragonslayer cousins because i am pure trash. 
> 
> please expect shenanigans - lots of them.
> 
> please continue making a girl happy by reviewing xo


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for descriptions of a panic attack in this chapter (just to be safe)!

 

The palace was silent. 

Well, the palace was  _ very  _ noisy, teeming with maids and butlers and strategists and more guests than she could count, all hurrying through the halls of the building eager to get on with their tasks for the day. But to Wendy Marvell, a fifteen year old surrounded by nothing but busy adults, the palace was more or less silent. And she was  _ bored _ . 

What was the point of having a seemingly endless list of cousins if, for several months throughout the year, they all disappeared? If they weren’t studying halfway across the world, they were travelling or working, leaving her very much alone. And very bored.

Her brows furrowed and her lips puckered into a small pout as she flitted through the corridors, barely registering the people she passed in her mind as she dipped her head into room after room, looking for someone,  _ anyone _ , to entertain her, until she found herself being tugged backwards gently by the collar of her shirt.

“Ah, ah, where is my favourite niece rushing off to without even saying good morning to her dear uncle?

“I’m your  _ only  _ niece, Uncle Igneel,” she laughed, turning to find him standing just a few inches away from her, his trademark grin lighting up his face.

“Yes, but even if I had 100 nieces, you’d still be my favourite,” he teased, winking as he stretched out his arm and draped it around her shoulders, “now, where were you rushing off to?” he asked as he led her down the corridor. 

“Nowhere in particular,” she shrugged, “I was just looking for something to do, it’s so quiet around here.”

“Ah,” Igneel hummed knowingly, “I suppose it  _ is  _ a little dull without Natsu causing his usual amount of trouble, hm?”

Wendy giggled, leaning into her uncle’s embrace as they turned a corner and stepped outside into the courtyard.

“Still,” he continued, “just a few weeks left, and he and Gajeel will be back for the summer. Though,” he paused in his stride and frowned a little, “come to think of it, Sting and Rogue are due back not long after.”

“Don’t forget Erik,” she added, lips curling up into a sly smile, “he  _ promised  _ he’d try and stop in sometime this summer.” 

“Oh  _ God _ ,” Igneel groaned, “well, get a good look now, my sweet,” he said, gesturing dramatically to their surroundings, “with them all returning, this palace may not be standing by the end of the summer.” 

She laughed again, shaking her head at her uncle’s tendency to over exaggerate - a tendency she was fairly certain Natsu had inherited. 

“Where are you off to, uncle?”

“I was looking for your mother actually, any idea where she is?”

“She’s visiting a hospital on behalf of Uncle Metalicana.  _ I  _ wanted to go along as well, but she said I had to finish my studies for the day.” Wendy pulled a face, the fact that all the schools in Fiore had broken up for the summer hadn’t deterred her mother who  _ still  _ insisted Wendy have her usual lessons for the next few weeks. At times like this, she understood why Gajeel and Natsu had been so eager to spend their final years of education studying abroad - though she still hadn’t entirely forgiven them for leaving her alone for most of the year.

She didn’t like to pick favourites when it came to her cousins (they were a  _ horribly  _ competitive bunch), but due to Laxus and Erik spending most of the year abroad, working as Fioran ambassadors in various countries around the world, and Sting and Rogue’s annoying habit of disappearing to travel every now and then, she’d spent most of her most formative years alongside both Gajeel and Natsu. So when they both decided to up and leave to go and study in Pergrande for a few years before they would be expected to take up ‘official duties’, she had been understandably peeved. Though she had friends her own age, the palace really wasn’t a place for a child as young as she.

“ _ Did  _ you finish them?” Igneel asked suddenly, bumping her shoulder lightly to snap her out of her thoughts.

“Yes!” 

“Hmm,” Igneel pulled a face, pretending to contemplate his next statement, “I  _ was  _ hoping to drag Granny around with me, but I’ll guess you’ll have to do in her place.” 

Wendy covered her mouth, hiding her small giggle as she listened to her uncle speak her mother’s dreaded nickname.

“What do you have in mind?”

“I have a few errands to run in the city, but  _ first _ ,” they slowed to a halt outside the suite he shared with shared with Natsu, “I just need to grab a few things.” For the first time since he stumbled across her five minutes ago, Igneel released her from his hold and began fumbling around in his pockets for his keys.

“Come in, come in,” he said once he managed to push the door open, ushering Wendy with his usual exuberance, “make yourself at home, I’ll be five minutes.” 

She nodded and shuffled towards the living room, picking up the remote from the couch as she went. It was weird, she realised, being in Igneel's suite without having Natsu lounging around somewhere and she couldn't help but feel a little bit guilty. Surely  _ she  _ wasn't the only one who missed her cousins while they were in Pergrande, and she wondered if Igneel ever felt lonely too. He certainly never said anything about it but, then again, she didn't think Igneel was the type of person to mention something like that. 

Deciding she would make more of a conscious effort to spend some quality time with her uncle while Natsu was away, she dropped onto the couch, switched the television on and began flicking aimlessly through the channels.

In the rooms behind her, she could hear Igneel grunting and mumbling to himself and for a second she wondered if she should go and offer some help. She made to stand up and then froze, her eyes catching something on the TV. She stared for a few moments,  _ sure _ she'd seen wrong, but then the camera zoomed in and she couldn't deny it any longer.

She frowned, sliding off the sofa as she shuffled closer to the television, “Uncle Igneel?” she called loudly, “Natsu’s on TV.”

Silence followed her statement and, for a moment or two, she wondered if she hadn’t spoken loud enough. Then, she heard something (seemingly rather heavy)  _ thud  _ to the floor, followed by very rapid footsteps.

“ _ What _ ?” Igneel said, eyes wide as he skidded into the room, “Natsu’s on T...V…” he trailed off as he turned to face the television to find his one and only child slap, bang in the middle of the TV. 

“What is he  _ doing _ ?”

“Magic tricks.”

“Magic...tricks?”

She nodded, jerking her head towards the television set where Natsu was currently attempting a fairly complicated card trick. Behind her, she could hear Igneel whimpering quietly to himself as he slid onto the sofa. It had been a while since Natsu had made the news for some ridiculous thing or other. Wendy’s eyes widened suddenly as she scrambled for the remote. While Natsu had a penchant for being the centre of attention, he  _ generally  _ understood that keeping a low profile, as a nephew of the Fioran monarchs, was a fairly wise idea. During her childhood, the only times she’d seen him throw caution to the wind and do something stupid (or weird) enough to end up on TV, was to distract the press from Gajeel who, due to his status as the  _ Crown Prince _ , couldn’t really be seen in the odd situations they often found themselves in. 

“Oh no,” she murmured to herself as the screen cut from Natsu (struggling) with his magic trick to a photograph.

“Is that... _ no _ …” Igneel murmured as he too slid off the sofa and shuffled closer to the television, “that’s not...is that  _ Gajeel _ ?” 

“Yes,” Wendy said slowly, watching images of her cousin with his arms wrapped around a small woman panned across the screen, “yes it is.”

* * *

 

Her boyfriend getting along with, quite possibly, the two most important men in her life was something that was extremely important to Levy. Which was why, for the last two weeks, she had been diligently planning the evening where she would finally introduce Jet and Droy to Gajeel. After careful consideration she settled on inviting them all to her favourite bar, in the hopes they would all happily bond over greasy burgers, good music and even better beer. In her mind, after a few hours holed up in her favourite booth, the three men would end up the best of friends and she’d have nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately, things hadn’t gone according to plan.

The testosterone in the room was almost tangible, with both Jet and Droy stood defensively on either side of her, arms crossed and standing up to their full height, which Levy could only assume was some weird attempt to try and intimidate Gajeel. Not that she blamed either of them if she was honest. Gajeel was practically mirroring their body language though, she had to admit, the effect was lost a little on him considering he couldn’t  _ quite  _ shake the look of nervousness in his eyes. If she hadn’t been so stressed, she might’ve considered it cute. Maybe.

“So,” Jet said loudly, puffing out his chest just a tiny bit, “it’s so good to _finally_ meet you.”

“Yeah,” Droy added, “because we’ve heard  _ sooo  _ much about you.” 

“Oh- _ kay, _ ” Levy said firmly, stepping forwards to stand in between all three men, “I know you have to do this weird ‘alpha male’ display or whatever the hell is going on now, I get it, it’s a guy thing, but can you just give us five minutes?” 

“Bu-”

“Just  _ five  _ minutes?” she asked, shooting them both her best puppy dog eyes, “and then you can lay into him as much as you want.”

“Oi!” 

“You  _ ssh _ ,” Levy muttered to Gajeel before turning her attention back to Jet and Droy, “please?” 

They exchanged a glance between them before they both reluctantly nodded and shuffled out of the room, though not before shooting Gajeel a suspicious glance each as they disappeared through a door. 

Turning back to Gajeel, Levy watched as he murmured “you can go too, Lil’,” to the man stood by his side. The man hesitated for a fraction of second, his eyes flickering towards Levy and back to Gajeel before she barely had a chance to blink, but then nodded and followed Jet and Droy out of the room. 

“Lily? As in your Uncle Lily?” she asked quietly as she crossed the small space between them to stand directly in front of him.

“Ah. Well,” he scratched the back of his neck nervously, “he’s not really my uncle, more like my...bodyguard. But he’s been my dad’s friend for years so he’s pretty much part of the family, so…” he trailed off, and Levy couldn’t help note how easily he seemed to get flustered. But she had bigger things to worry about than the way the tip of his nose was reddening ever so slightly, or the way his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down every time he nervously swallowed, trying desperately not to look her in the eye.

“Your dad?” she said slowly, “a man also known as the King of Fiore, perhaps?”

There it was again; the nervous swallow, the red nose and, she noticed with interest, he’d taken to running a hand through his hair every few seconds. 

“That...would be correct, yeah.”

“Hm. And so, when we started getting to know each other, you didn’t think it necessary to mention, at any point, that you’re a bloody  _ Prince _ ?!” 

“I was going to, I swear, I jus-”

“ _ Gajeel! _ ” she groaned, “I’ve just woken up to find pictures of us  _ kissing  _ all over the news, and you just  _ forgot  _ to mention that tiny,  _ miniscule _ , little detail?”

“OK, I get it, you’re mad.”

“I’m not  _ mad _ ,” she huffed, dropping her head into the palm of her hands as she tried to figure out the right words, “I’m just...well...you couldn’t have given me a heads up?”

Something soft brushed against her shoulder and she glanced up, only mildly surprised to find he had closed the gap between them and was standing directly in front of her with one arm raised awkwardly in the air, as if he had been debating over whether to embrace her not. Rolling her eyes at the ridiculousness of his posture, she glanced up only to have her snort of laughter hitch in her throat. For the first time since her confrontation, he was looking her in the eye. 

“I’m sorry,” he said earnestly, exhaling deeply, “it’s just...I just couldn’t find a decent moment to tell you.”

“How about any time from, oh I don’t know, around the  _ second date _ ?” 

He winced at that, and an emotion she couldn’t quite place flitted across his face. But before she had the chance to question it, it was gone.

“It’s hard,” he mumbled, “telling people about who I am. They start to act different once they find out, and,” he shrugged, and exhaled another deep breath, “I dunno. I didn’t want you to see me different, I guess.”

OK well now  _ she  _ just felt guilty.

“I wouldn't have seen you any differently,” she sighed, stepping forwards to rest her head against his chest, “I  _ don't  _ see you any differently. Though,” she peeked up at him and shot him a small smile, “I might not be  _ so  _ adamant about splitting the bill anymore.” 

To her relief, he chuckled quietly, bringing his arms back up to wrap around her as he did so, “I thought you were gonna kill me.” 

“I still might,” she murmured against his chest, “depends what else you're hiding from me.” 

“Well…”

“Don't you  _ dare _ ,” she laughed, pulling back just far enough to catch him snickering at her, “so, what happens now?” 

His grin dimmed a little as he released her from his embrace and ran a hand through his hair, “how’d you mean?” 

“Well,” she gestured to the TV, “with all this? Do we need to make a statement? Do I have to say anything? Is this  _ allowed _ ? Are you allowed to...um...to date someone like me?” 

“Someone like you?” 

“Like,” she shrugged, “I don’t know...not ‘upper class’ or anything. Oi! What's so funny?” she asked, eyes narrowing as he began to snicker again. 

“You're taking this better than I thought you would, that's all.” 

She rolled her eyes, “answer my question, your  _ majesty _ .”

Now it was his turn to narrow his eyes at her, “ _ yes,  _ I can date who I want. I mean, it's a  _ little  _ unorthodox but it's not like it's never been done before.” His lips quirked up a little and she got the distinct impression he was enjoying an inside joke with himself. 

She opened her mouth to question him, but was interrupted by the door being flung open.

“Are you  _ done  _ yet?” Droy grumbled, sticking his head out from behind the door, “only it's just, the press are back.”

“I think there's more of them this time,” Jet’s voice called, slightly muffled from, Levy presumed, peeking out from behind the curtains, “yep, definitely more.”

“Yeah, come back in,” Levy sighed wearily. In the few minutes she’d been alone with Gajeel she had momentarily forgotten about the situation unfolding outside their home. 

“I don't suppose you have any ideas for dealing with that,” she asked, turning back to Gajeel to find he had that strange expression plastered across his face again.

He stared at her intently for a few seconds, before abruptly looking away, grunting “Lil?” 

Frowning, she glanced behind her to find Lily, Jet and Droy re-entering the room. She shot both Jet and Droy a grateful smile as they hopped over the back of the sofa and plopped down onto it. 

“Wait,” she said, smiling apologetically at Lily, “before you start, I think I should probably introduce you guys, properly at least.”

“Yeah, that  _ would  _ be nice.”

“This is Jet and Droy,” she said loudly, ignoring Jet’s sarcastic remark, “and guys, this is Gajeel, my...ah…” she cleared her throat, still unused to saying the word out loud, “my boyfriend. I know you guys want to grill him,” she paused and glanced surreptitiously at Gajeel and couldn’t help but smirk a little as she watched him swallow nervously at that, “but, I’ve already done it, so don’t worry.”

“Yeah, we heard you,” Droy grumbled, “you were very tame.”

“Mmm,” Jet hummed, “we were hoping to burst in on him kissing your toes, begging for forgiveness.” 

Beside her, a snort of laughter escaped Lily’s lips. 

“I haven’t completely ruled that out,” she laughed, ignoring the way Gajeel mumbled  _ “I can’t believe you’re ganging up on me?!” _ , before she turned to face Lily, “but, for now we have bigger problems. Mainly that mess outside.” She glanced quickly towards the television set, her heart sinking into her stomach just a little as she watched the photograph flash across the screen again. She wondered if she’d ever get used to this kind of invasion of privacy. The only consolation, and it was a  _ small  _ one, was that her name hadn’t been mentioned yet - though she didn’t doubt that wouldn’t last for much longer.

“Right,” Lily said clearly, pulling himself up to his full height, “Natsu has...distracted them for as long as he could a-”

“What’d he do this time, by the way?” Gajeel asked.

“Magic tricks.”

“Magic tricks? Not that crappy card one again?”

“I’m afraid so,” Lily said, though the quirk of his lips betrayed his serious tone and Levy made a mental note to find out more about Natsu and his seemingly terrible magic tricks, “getting out of here without being seen is going to be pretty difficult. I suggest we cut our losses and get it over with and leave through the front.”

“What?” Jet said suddenly, “we’re  _ leaving _ ?”

“You can’t stay here,” Gajeel said seriously, as if that had been an extremely obvious course of action.

“Where the hell are we supposed to go?”

“My place,” he said in the same tone, frowning a little now, “unless you have somewhere else?” 

“You’re doing a terrible job of explaining this to them,” Lily muttered, shaking his head at Gajeel, “remember,  _ they’re  _ not used to things like this.”

“ _ Thank you _ , Lily,” Jet said pointedly, “now can you explain why we have to go?”

“They won’t leave until they get what they want,” he said.

“And what is that?”

Lily shrugged, “a juicy story? A scandal? Anything that will sell papers and get them more viewers. It’s not going to be long before they start knocking at the door.”

“Can they do that?” Levy said quickly, eyes widening in alarm, “I...I thought that was illegal?”

“Not illegal, just...frowned upon,” Lily sighed, “it’s called doorstepping and, if I’m honest, I’m surprised they haven’t started doing it already.”

“Great,” she mumbled, “just  _ great _ .”

“Hey,” Gajeel brushed his shoulder against hers, “it’s fine, that’s why you’re leaving.”

“Gajeel lives in a gated apartment block,” Lily told Jet and Droy, “the press can’t get past the doorman.”

“How’d they get that picture then?” Droy asked with a frown.

“Long lense cameras,” Gajeel scowled, “the bane of my life.” 

A pang of sympathy shot through Levy as he said that, as she found herself imagining a childhood for him where everywhere he turned a camera was shoved into his face. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how isolating that must have felt. Hesitantly, she reached out and wound her fingers between his own, squeezing lightly. She didn’t look up at him, but after a second or two, she felt him squeeze back. 

“So we’ll go back there and try and lie low, or at least until we can speak to your father,” Lily said, nodding to Gajeel. 

“Great,” Gajeel muttered, scowling again, “just  _ great _ .”

Pretending he hadn’t heard the sullen tone in Gajeel’s voice, Lily clapped his hands together and told them all to grab as much as they needed to spend a few days away. 

The next five minutes seemed to pass in a blur as they hurried around their house, grabbing everything they needed but, before she knew it, she was standing by the door with a duffel bag under her shoulders, peering nervously out through the peephole.

“That crowd has  _ definitely _ gotten bigger since we last checked,” she murmured, inching out of the way a little for Jet to take a look.

“This is so surreal. I mean,” he glanced back at Gajeel, “he doesn’t even  _ look  _ like a Prince.”

“Yeah,” Droy chimed in, “are you sure we’re not being Punked?” 

Levy giggled and swatted them both gently on the arms. She knew they were trying to cheer her up to take her attention away from the crowd that awaited them outside and she appreciated it very much. Not for the first time, she thanked the heavens that her mother had decided to purchase a home next door to Droy’s all those years ago. 

“You ready?” Gajeel asked as he approached, lifting his hand to hover over the handle of the door.

She frowned up at him and scoffed, “yes? Why do you look so nervous, let’s just...let’s just get this over with.” 

He hesitated for a moment, before shrugging and unlocking it, “into the jungle we go.” 

She  _ almost  _ rolled her eyes at the absurdity of his statement, but as he pulled the door open she quickly realised how accurate it was. 

The door swung open and a brief silence followed before everything seemed to happen at once. Cameras began flashing, people began shouting and screaming and shoving. She felt her heartbeat quicken and she took in the crowd around them. For as far as she could see, their road was completely packed with people all staring at them. 

“Just keep moving, don’t answer anything, just keep moving,” Lily instructed as he stepped out of the house. Swallowing nervously, she followed, trying her best to keep her head down as they hurried down the pathway.

She’d been expecting noise, but she hadn’t been expecting  _ anything  _ like this. 

With each step she took, her heartbeat seemed to race even faster and, belatedly, she realised it was getting harder to breathe. Each breath seemed shallower than the one before, like she was rapidly depleting the air supply around her. She opened her mouth wide and took several large, gulping breaths, hands pressed against her chest as she tried to coax some air into her lungs. The cameras continued to go off in her eyes, momentarily blinding her every few seconds, and someone (or several people) was incessantly shouting something in her ear. She could feel her heart racing at a pace that was probably dangerous and, as if the lack of oxygen wasn’t enough, she could feel her legs beginning to buckle. Had the distance from their house to the road just outside always been this far? It felt as if she was running a marathon, not walking less than two metres. She needed to go back inside. 

She couldn’t do this. 

This was all too much. She needed to run. She couldn’t handle this. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t, she cou-

“It’s OK.”

For a second or two, everything around her seemed to freeze in position. The camera’s stopped flashing, the obnoxious yelled quietened to a mute whisper, and, most importantly, she could  _ breathe  _ again. Ahead of her, she could see Jet and Droy, acting as a barrier against the paparazzi coming from the front. And standing by her side, was Gajeel. One arm was wrapped protectively around her shoulders, squeezing lightly as his thumb rubbed soothing circles over her collarbone, while the other hand was reaching outwards, shoving away invasive cameras as they pushed through the crowd.

“Come on,” he murmured, just quietly enough for only her to hear, “it’s OK, we’re nearly at the car.”

She could only nod as she allowed him to tug her closer under his arm, shielding her from the cameras as they moved. Something hitched in her throat as his grip on her shoulder loosened and his hand travelled to her waist, pulling her even closer to him as they made their way to the car. 

Keeping her head down, she allowed him to guide her all the way to the car, barely noticing as the door was flung open from the inside and they all piled in, with Lily rushing over to the driver’s seat door. 

A pink haired man she found herself thinking looked  _ vaguely  _ familiar was already seated in the back, frowning as he watched her climb in, but she couldn’t even bring herself to greet him, all she could focus on was the fact she could  _ finally  _ breathe again.

“Are you OK?” Gajeel murmured, sliding into the seat next to hers, his arm still draped over her shoulders.

“I’m fine.” 

“You’re shaking.”

“She’s shaking!?” Jet and Droy cried in unison, scrambling forwards in their seats to get a better look at her, “are you OK? Levy?” 

“I’m  _ fine _ ,” she said quietly, but firmly this time, “I just...I wasn’t expecting  _ that _ . Is it always that bad?” she asked, craning her head a little to look up at Gajeel. To her surprise, he was looking down at her, the same strange expression etched onto his face, but, just like before, before she had the chance to ask him what was wrong he turned away and took to glaring out of the car window.

“Yeah. You get used to it.”

A lump formed in her throat. She wasn’t sure she  _ could  _ get used to that.


	4. Chapter 4

It was hard, he decided as he watched the two of them curiously enter his apartment, eyes wide in poorly concealed awe as they took in their surroundings. It was  _ hard  _ having to let so many people into his personal space at once after so many years of doing his utmost best to keep people out. 

Letting Levy in had been difficult enough and it had taken months of her unknowingly, but patiently, chipping away at his carefully crafted walls before he even realised she had wormed her way under his skin. Not long after that, he realised he actually didn’t  _ mind  _ her being by his side. In fact, he quite liked it - encouraged it even. And he wasn’t used to that. He’d spent the last 21 years with only his family and  _ extremely  _ close family friends for company, being overly wary of anyone who didn’t fit that description. The whole ‘Prince’ thing meant he couldn’t afford to let the wrong people in after all. 

But then she dropped into his life and, suddenly, it was like his whole world had been turned upside down. 

He  _ wanted  _ to be close to somebody outside his immediate circle of family, he  _ wanted  _ to spend time with her and let her in. Only, that was difficult. He felt guilty every time she’d open to him, telling him all about her mother and their home away from home on a small island called Tenrou, and her two best friends she was so close to, she eventually just began referring to them as her brothers. Every time she’d lean back against his chest and catch his gaze with her eyes, so full of wonder and interest, and ask him a question about his cousins or his parents he’d feel a pang of shame shoot through him as he tried to alter his past ever so slightly to omit those crucial details about his true upbringing. She trusted him entirely and all he did was tell her lie after lie. Granted, the lies were for his own personal safety (not that he truly believed she posed much of a threat to it anyway), but it left a very strange and unpleasant taste in his mouth. Inevitably, he decided he was going to tell her the truth. Their friendship had morphed into something more without him realising and he knew he had to tell her the truth, on  _ his  _ terms, before what they had got out of hand and, well, something like  _ this  _ happened to ruin it all.

He sighed to himself as he contemplated the bitter irony of it all. He didn’t like how things had unfolded at all. Not only had the truth come out in such an explosive way,  _ she  _ had been placed right in the middle of it, without any buffers to protect her from the viciousness of the media. And yet she was still there, grinning and laughing through all the madness as if her whole world hadn’t been shaken just moments ago. 

“I’m  _ just  _ saying,” Jet said loudly, cutting through Gajeel’s thoughts as he dropped onto the couch, “how could you  _ not  _ guess something was up?” 

“This place is a frickin’  _ mansion _ compared to ours,” Droy added as he peered through Gajeel’s rather extensive DVD collection, “his sofa doesn’t even have any holes in it. What kind of student can afford a sofa without holes?!”

“Well I knew he was a little better off than us-”

“A  _ little _ ?”

“But,” she continued, ignoring Droy’s outburst, “you know, my first instinct wasn’t to assume he was...you know…” she glanced over her shoulder at him, her face reddening a little, before she quickly looked away, “I didn’t think he was a  _ Prince _ .” 

Something heavy seemed to settle in the pit of his stomach as he watched her sigh before crumpling onto the couch, resting her head in her palms. She looked utterly defeated, and he didn’t blame her. 

He remembered his first real interaction with the press and recalled how terrifying he had found it. He remembered feeling small,  _ so small _ , and afraid. Afraid that if he stepped one toe out of line he would ruin everything and bring shame to the family. It was a horrible position for anyone to be in, least of all a child barely able to write his own name, but at least then he had had his parents by his side. His mother holding his hand while his father grinned down at him and took the brunt of the press questioning. He’d also been somewhat prepared for it. For years he’d watched through tinted windows in cars or peeked from behind Lily’s legs hidden from view, observing the way his parents would be accosted whenever they left their home, knowing that one day he too would be expected to deal with it with the same grace and firm politeness his parents somehow managed.

Levy had had none of that. She had been thrown into the circus that was his life without any warning and had been expected to somehow stay afloat. The weight in his stomach seemed to knot almost painfully as he recalled how’d she reacted to the press outside her home. He’d watched as her hands balled up into small, tight, fists and her confident grin fell from her face. He’d watched as she faltered in her step, shaking ever so slightly as she murmured something he couldn’t quite hear under her breath. It had taken all his self-control for him to remember just  _ who  _ he was and that, despite how rude and invasive the press were, he couldn’t just tear the cameras away from their hands and chuck them back at them. He couldn’t snarl obscenities and tell them  _ exactly  _ what was on his mind. He simply had to grin and bare it all.

But that was his burden. Not hers. 

“ _ So _ ,” Natsu muttered, bumping his shoulder against Gajeel’s, “what’s the plan?” 

“I don’t  _ have _ a plan.”

“Hm.” 

Admittedly, he hadn’t given much thought to what was going to happen  _ after  _ they left Levy’s home. His only concern had been getting her out of there and somewhere safe from prying eyes. What they would do next was beyond him.

“Have you called home yet?”

The knot in his stomach tightened a little as he turned to face Natsu, trying to school his expression as best as possible, “Lily’s on it,” he murmured, nodding his head towards Lily, who was stood against the wall with his phone practically glued to the side of his face, muttering quickly.

Deep down, Gajeel knew it was his responsibility to call home. He knew that his parents would be expecting the call from him so  _ he  _ could explain the mess he had gotten them all in, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. 

“They’re not gonna be mad y’know,” Natsu said knowingly, and Gajeel couldn’t help but wonder if his expressions were really  _ that  _ readable, or if Natsu just knew him too well, “shit happens.” 

Despite himself, Gajeel couldn’t help but snort at Natsu’s choice of phrasing, “this is more than just ‘shit happening’,” he said dryly. As the news reporter had so helpfully phrased it just a few hours ago, this was the biggest scandal to hit the Fioran Royal Family in years.

“So you got caught kissing someone,” Natsu shrugged, “no big deal.”

“You don’t get it,” Gajeel murmured, exhaling deeply as he tried to school his emotions before he snapped at his cousin. It wasn’t Natsu’s fault that any of this had happened, and it wasn’t Natsu’s fault that he didn’t understand the extent of trouble he had undoubtedly caused. 

It had always been like this. While Natsu was part of the Royal Family, he wasn’t the  _ Crown Prince,  _ he wasn’t one day going to have to inherit the crown and all the responsibilities that came with and, as such, hadn’t grown up with the same expectations or scrutiny Gajeel had placed upon him. Natsu had been afforded the luxury of being able to goof off and mess up without having to worry about how his actions would affect his perception in the eyes of the public. No-one wanted a ruler they deemed irresponsible and reckless after all.

Natsu shrugged again, “OK, so I don’t understand. But I  _ do  _ know your parents, and I know they’re not gonna be mad.”

Gajeel couldn’t disagree with him there. He knew his parents wouldn’t be angry at him, but he couldn’t shrug off that hint of self-doubt that continually told him they would be  _ disappointed  _ in him. 

And that, he decided, was worse than all the anger in the world. 

* * *

 

To the Fiorans, known for their pride and dedication for the their monarchy, Metalicana Redfox was a most formidable King. He was famed for his ability to command respect from all, even his enemies, his cool demeanor and likeable personality. Not once had they seen him lose his temper and act rashly. Even in the most difficult situations he would manage to keep a straight face, and look ahead, considering every course of action before making a decision. 

But to those closest to him, he had several tells.

Wendy watched carefully as her uncle sank into the nearest armchair, his brows furrowed as he tapped his forefinger repeatedly against his thigh in rapid succession. He was nervous. She watched as he leaned forwards in the chair, laced his fingers together and stared at the television through narrowed eyes, only breaking his concentration every now and then to mutter something to the woman stood behind him. He was  _ very _ nervous.

Not that Wendy could blame him. They were  _ all  _ nervous. As soon as Igneel had seen the report, he was on the phone to Metalicana and not even ten minutes after that, the man himself was knocking down his door, followed by his wife, Voeda, and Wendy’s mother. They’d spent the last five minutes in silence, watching the news report after news report, trying to take in as much information as they possibly could. 

“Relax,” Voeda said softly, bringing her hand up to rest gently on his shoulder. The effect on her uncle was so instantaneous, Wendy couldn’t help but smirk as she watched his shoulder relax as he leaned into her touch. She’d always marvelled, and envied to an extent, the calming presence her aunt had over the two men closest to her heart.

The photograph appeared on the screen again, this time magnifying it as much as possible without it getting blurry as two presenters commented on it off screen, making wild speculations. Seeing the image again made something in Wendy’s blood seem to boil, and she turned away from the screen, scowling ever so slightly. A degree of invasion from the press came with the territory of being part of the Royal Family but this? This was just over the line. She didn’t even have it in her to mentally tease Gajeel about the young woman nestled in his arms. 

Instead, she felt a pang of outrage shoot through her as she wondered how Gajeel would be taking this invasion of privacy. His disdain for the press was no secret among the family and she could only imagine how he must have felt seeing such a private and intimate moment splashed across the front pages as if he were nothing but tabloid fodder. 

She glanced back towards Metalicana, unsurprised to find the deep frown on his face was back in full force as he stared at the images being shown across the screen. 

“Who do you think she is?” Igneel said suddenly, head cocked to the side a little as he stared at the laughing woman in the photograph.

“According to The Daily Star,” Grandine sighed next to Wendy, “she  _ could  _ be an assassin.”

“An assassin?”

“Mmm. From Bosco. They’re reporting she was hired to, and this is a direct quote mind you, ‘take him out, but then fell  _ madly  _ in love with the dreamy Prince’”. 

Wendy snorted into the palm of her hand. ‘Dreamy’ was definitely not a word she heard associated with Gajeel very often. She’d heard it applied to Sting more than a few times, and, bizarrely, even Laxus once or twice, but the press tended to reserve words like ‘brooding’ and ‘sullen’ when it came to describing Gajeel.

“Don’t they have to verify their claims before they print them?” Voeda muttered quietly, gaze still fixated on the screen. 

This time it was Igneel’s turn to snort, “didn’t you learn your lesson that time The Valley Post printed  _ we  _ were planning on eloping together?”

“Speaking of eloping,” Grandine said, cutting across Igneel’s laughter, “The Chronicle are going with the story that  _ Gajeel _ is planning to elope with her.”

“He’d never to do that to his mother,” Metalicana scoffed dismissively, barely giving the suggestion any thought and earning himself a soft chuckle from Voeda.

“I’m just telling you what  _ they’re  _ writing,” Grandine huffed, “I don’t see why we don’t just ask Gajeel ourselves.”

“He’s not picking up his phone,” Metalicana sighed. 

“Of course he won’t,” Voeda said quietly with a knowing, yet sad, smile, “he’ll be a-”

She froze, mouth falling open slightly as she stared at the television. The image of the photograph had been swapped for the first video footage they’d seen all day. The change of the atmosphere in the room was almost tangible as they all stared, slack-jawed, as they watched the events unfold on the screen before them.

Wendy’s hands balled into small fists as she watched Lily emerge from a house, followed by two men she’d never seen before, the mystery girl, and then Gajeel. The girl kept her head down as she took a few steps forwards, shoulders quivering ever so slightly as she clutched her duffel bag to her chest and tried not to trip over her feet as she walked. 

For a moment or two, Wendy allowed herself the rather comforting thought that it wasn’t so bad. They were being given a fairly wide berth by the reporters and, aside from a few rudely invasive questions, weren’t being heckled too badly. And then the girl looked up and offered the reporters a nervous smile, and it was like all hell had been let loose. All of a sudden, they converged on them, leaving barely an inch or two of space. 

Wendy watched in horror as the girl froze mid step, her eyes widening as she furiously mumbled something the camera couldn’t quite pick up. Her chest began to heave and the quiver in her shoulders was becoming more apparent with each passing second. She looked terrified. 

“They’re  _ not  _ allowed to get that close to him,” Metalicana snapped, eyes flashing with a slow-burning anger Wendy knew she did not want to see come to fruition (silently, she muttered a small prayer for the news reporters), “they’re barely giving him room to  _ breathe _ .”

“It’s a different country,” Grandine said, though her eyes had narrowed dangerously as well as she looked upon the screen, “they don’t have the same rules as we do.”

“It’s not about rules, what about common courtesy?”

“They appear to lack  _ that  _ as well.”

The camera jostled slightly as the group of reporters and cameramen surged forwards once again, this time visibly startling the girl into moving. She took several steps backwards and Wendy would’ve worried she was close to falling over if it hadn’t been for Gajeel. 

She watched, with a surge of pride, as Gajeel wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her into his chest. He murmured something the camera couldn’t quite catch, but the woman seemed to visibly relax slightly, leaning into his embrace as he steered her through the crowd and into the car waiting for them. 

“He cares for her,” Voeda said simply, watching the car drive down the road (with reporters still chasing after it), with the same knowing smile tugging at her lips. Nodding to herself, she pushed away from Metalicana, retrieved her phone from her bag and quickly began tapping away. 

Wendy nodded in agreement. Affection was something you had to earn when it came to Gajeel and, while he wasn’t shy of pulling her into hugs or letting her rest against his chest, she had yet to see him offer that same kind of affection to anyone outside their family. 

Igneel nodded as well, exhaling a breath as he leaned backwards onto his palms, watching the camera switch to a reporter stood outside the now empty house.

_ “We are glad to inform you that PBC News can now report the name of woman who has captured the young Prince’s heart,”  _ the reporter grinned, pressing a finger to her earpiece as she waited for her producer to relay the information, “ _ 20-year-old Levy Mcgarden, first…”  _ the reporter trailed off, eyes wide as she listened to her producer. 

_ “And...and…”  _ she cleared her throat, “ _ now, we’re going back to the studio for-” _

The camera cut off suddenly, switching back to the two presenters in the studio, who were discussing the intricacies of the Fioran Royal Family.

“Why’d she look so scared?” Wendy wondered aloud, thinking back to the way the colour had seemed to drain from the reporter’s face.

“Maybe she really  _ is  _ an assassin?” Igneel laughed, while Grandine rolled her eyes, digging her own phone out of her bag. 

“Aunty Voeda?” Wendy asked, frowning as she watched her aunt tapping furiously on her phone, “is everything alr-”

“Ah-ha!” Grandine cheered suddenly, cutting across her daughter as she waved her phone wildly in the air, “Levy McGarden appears to be the daughter of a…” she paused for a moment or two as she scrolled down the page on her phone, “an Ardelle McGarden, a partner at a firm called Vermillion and Dreyar. Hm.”

“What?” Igneel asked, craning his neck as he tried to look over Grandine’s shoulder - she responded by very deliberately turning away from him.

“I’ve heard of them before,” she said slowly, still scrolling through her phone, “I think they’ve taken on quite a few big cases in recent years.”

“Well,” Metalicana said loudly, exhaling a short breath as he stared in mild confusion at his wife, “that explains the look of terror on that reporter’s face. And what  _ are  _ you doing?”

“Hm?” Voeda looked up from her phone, a pleased smile lighting up her features, “I’m just getting a flight booked.”

“A  _ flight?  _ To  _ where _ ?”

She chuckled quietly and shook her head, as if the answer were painfully obvious as she crouched down, crouching down a little to tap her husband affectionately on the cheeks, “to Pergrande of course.”

* * *

 

She was at her limit.

Well, if she was honest with herself, she had probably already reached her limit after seeing that first news report earlier that morning and had been running on empty ever since. But  _ this _ ? There was only so much a girl could take. 

Gripping the fabric of her jeans so tightly her knuckles had begun to lose colour, she watched as her name flashed across the bottom of the screen accompanied by what  _ looked  _ like her student I.D. 

Beside her, she could hear either Jet or Droy telling her to not to worry and ‘everything’s going to be fine’, but she couldn’t bring herself to listen to their advice. All she could do was stare at the screen and try to remember to breathe every few seconds.

She had never felt so vulnerable in her entire life. 

“I didn’t think they would say my name,” she said quietly, still staring at the screen. Her name had been her one lifeline left. Sure, her face was out there for all the world to see, but she’d tricked herself into believing that as long as they didn’t say her name, everything would be alright. She’d clung to that hope, using it as a way of keeping herself grounded during all the madness. And now it had been ripped away from her, leaving her floundering in a sea of confusion.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, but she quickly shrugged it off as she pushed herself up from the sofa, “I’m just...I’m just going to get a drink,” she muttered, barely glancing at any of the men surrounding her as she stumbled towards the kitchen. 

Once she was inside, she closed the door firmly behind her and slid against the counter, eyes squeezed tightly shut as she tried to make sense of everything that had gone on that morning. Everything seemed incredibly surreal and she was having difficulty believing that just 24 hours ago she was a normal student and the only things she had to worry about was paying her rent and passing her upcoming exams. She laughed dryly to herself, realising how trivial all her previous worries seemed now. 

“You OK?” 

She glanced up, not entirely surprised to find Gajeel slipping into the kitchen. She watched as he closed the door behind him, leant against it, and fixed her with a curious stare. 

“About as well as you’d expect,” she shrugged, managing a weak smile, “you?” 

Scoffing slightly, he rolled his eyes and moved to take a few steps forwards, but seemed to think better of it and remained where he stood, pressed up against the door, “ _ I’m  _ fine,” he sighed, fixing her with that same strange look from before. 

“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” 

She paused for a moment or two, trying to decipher the storm of emotions currently flashing across his face. She saw anger and guilt and, most strangely,  _ fear _ ?

Frowning, she pushed away from the counter and shuffled towards him until there was only an inch or two between them, “like you’re scared I’m going to break,” she said softly.

He looked visibly startled by her observation and, if the door hadn’t been behind him, she didn’t doubt he would have taken a nervous step backwards. 

“I’m not,” he muttered, dropping his gaze.

“You  _ are _ ,” she said firmly, prodding his chest gently with her forefinger to get his attention, “you keep looking at me like you’re scared of something.”

“I’m not  _ scared _ ,” he grumbled, taking her hand in his own, “I’m…” he exhaled in frustration as he tried to wrap his tongue around the right words, “I’m sorry,” he settled on finally, “I’m  _ sorry _ .”

“Sorry for  _ what _ ?” she laughed nervously, still very aware that he was still holding her hands, his fingers looped loosely through her own.

“For everything,” he sighed, running his free hand through his hair, “for getting you involved in all this crap.” 

“I told you, it’s fi-”

“You don’t have to lie,” he said quietly, a sad smiling tugging at his lips, “I saw how you reacted to the press outside your place.”

“Well,” she huffed, snatching away her hand as she scowled up at him, “ _ anyone  _ would have reacted like that.”

“And back in there?” he asked, nodding backwards to the living room behind the closed door, “you looked like you were about to faint.”

She faltered slightly, this time avoiding  _ his  _ gaze to instead inspect her nails, “I wasn’t expecting them to say my name,” she mumbled.

“They’re going to do a lot of things you won’t expect. So,” he exhaled deeply, “so, I understand if you...if you want to end things. I mean we ca-”

“ _ What _ ?” she said sharply, snapping her head up to stare him directly in the eye, “you want us to  _ break up _ ?”

“I mean, it just seems like...I-” Gajeel spluttered, looking visibly alarmed when he realised she hadn’t reacted how he had expected, “I just don’t want you getting hurt,” he said quietly.

“And breaking up with me  _ isn’t _ going to hurt?” she laughed incredulously, “I’m not pretending like this is going to be easy for me, but,” she placed her hand against his chest and looked up at him, “I don’t want  _ this  _ to end and I  _ know  _ that sounds incredibly corny, but it’s the truth and...honestly, I don’t think I would’ve made it through today if you hadn’t been there.”

“You wouldn’t have been in this mess in the first place if it wasn’t for me,” he pointed out.

“Tomato, tomato,” she murmured, closing the space between them to rest her head against his chest. She smiled softly to herself as she felt one arm wrap around her waist while he used the other to run his fingers lightly through her hair.

“The point is,” she continued, “I’m already involved in this, us breaking up isn’t going to solve anything. And,” she peeked up, smiling shyly at him, “I don’t want to end this, and...and I don’t think you do either.”

“Obviously,” he muttered, cheeks reddening ever so slightly as he looked down on her, “and you’re  _ sure  _ you’re OK, shorty?”

A wave of relief seemed to wash through her as he uttered the teasing nickname. She hadn't really realised before, but he hadn't called her any variation of ‘shorty’ or ‘shrimp’ or any of the other equally creative playful nicknames he usually reserved for her since he’d turned up at her backdoor that morning. She was sure he hadn't even realised he'd said it, but to her, the use of the nickname again spoke volumes. She hadn't realised how worried he’d been before. 

“Levy?” he nudged her, once again forgoing the nickname, “are you sure this is alright?” 

She hesitated for a moment or two realising what he was trying to do. He was giving her an out, a way to escape the madness before things got too deep. Smile widening, she pushed herself onto her tiptoes and pressed a quick kiss against his cheek before nodding, “it's going to take some getting used to, but I'm sure.” 

She chuckled a little as she pulled back slightly, just in time to note the way the tip of his nose had reddened slightly. She loved catching him off guard. It wasn't hard to see that affection didn't come easily when it came to Gajeel, but that didn't mean he wasn't capable of it. You just had to be the right person, and Levy got an odd amount of pleasure from knowing she was one of the few people who were privy to this side of him. 

Her heartbeat quickened ever so slightly as she watched him bow his head, lips splitting into the crooked grin she adored, before they pressed gently against her own.

She sighed, melting into the kiss as he wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her flush against him.It was different to the kisses she had become accustomed to with Gajeel. The passionate, fiery kisses that often left her breathless more times than she wanted to admit.

It was soft. Tentative. Nervous. Just like their first kiss where their teeth had clanked together and they had awkwardly struggled to figure out what to do with their hands while they tried to find their own rhythm. It was as if he were testing the waters, trying to check if they really were fine.

In a way, she found it oddly comforting.

She found herself smiling into the kiss as she fisted his shirt, trying to get rid of the already impossibly small gap between them. 

Over the last 12 hours, the ground had been ripped from underneath her, leaving her stumbling and unsure in unfamiliar territory. And while she still felt incredibly lost among all the madness going on around her, she no longer felt like she was drowning in it. For the first time since seeing the news report that morning, she could see a light at the end of the tunnel. Admittedly, it was a very dark tunnel, but the light was definitely there. 

She was going to be fi-

" _ Oww! _ " she hissed, as the door to the kitchen was shoved open, sending Gajeel falling forwards so his forehead bumped against hers as she stumbled backwards, trying to keep them upright. 

"Ugh," Natsu sniffed, rolling his eyes dramatically as he slipped into the room, followed by Jet and Droy, "get a room."

"This  _ is  _ a room," Gajeel snapped, rubbing the sore area on his forehead while glaring daggers at his cousin, "and the door was closed."

"Yeah well, we  _ did  _ knock," Droy said pointedly while Levy took to staring at her toes to avoid his gaze, "and it's important."

"What have they done now?" she groaned, "posted my birth certificate, or something?" With the day she was having, she really didn't put it past them.

"No, well...not  _ yet _ ," Droy chuckled, "but you've got a call. Well, a FaceTime call."

She groaned again, leaning against the counter to cross her arms over her chest, "I've had  _ hundreds  _ of calls,” she grumbled. Her phone hadn't stopped ringing and vibrating since that morning, getting to the point where Levy had simply stuffed it under a cushion in the hopes of muffling the noise, “I thought it died from overheating."

"It did,” Jet said, grinning as he waved his phone in the air, “which is why she called  _ my  _ phone."

Levy froze, "...she?" There was only one ‘she’ who would resort to calling either of her boys if, for some reason, Levy didn't pick up her own phone.

“Mhm!” Jet laughed, tossing the phone towards her. She caught it awkwardly, just about managing to stop it from slipping through her fingers and falling to the floor. 

Taking a deep breath, she flipped the phone around and quickly thumbed in Jet’s passcode. 

She tried to force a confident smile onto her face as she stared at the slightly pixelated face on the screen.

“Levy? Levy, is that you? Levy?” 

The pixelated face came into focus and Levy couldn't help but smile as she watched her mother adjust her phone, “hey, mum,” she said softly. 

“Oh thank  _ God _ ,” Ardelle McGarden gushed, “are you OK? What's going on? Why weren't you answering your phone? Why are you on the  _ news _ ?” 

Levy hesitated, glancing at Gajeel quickly who, interestingly, was staring at the phone as if he thought it might explode. Resisting the urge to laugh, she turned back to her mother and smiled weakly at her, “well…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voeda and Ardelle are both Silv's (Silver Inklett) OC's, I just adore them a lot and she's very graciously letting me use them ~


	5. Chapter 5

There were very few things that truly scared Gajeel. He feared disappointing his parents and had never been able to shake the feeling that he would fail in his duty as Crown Prince (and eventual King) and earn himself the ire of his countrymen, but that was a different kind of fear. It was a strange sort of fear, always in his periphery but never ever really in the forefront of his thoughts. Just present enough for him to know it was there, but never really enough for it to truly affect his day-to-day. Some days were worse than others, of course, but for the most part he was able to push his fear to side and get on with his life.

But this? This was a completely different type of fear. It was a paralysing, sweat-inducing kind of fear that kept him rooted to the spot, unable to flee from the room as he stared at the scene unfolding in front of him.

"I'm _fine_ , I promise," Levy said softly, not sounding even the slightest bit impatient even though she'd essentially said the same thing about ten times since picking up the call, "everything is a bit hectic, but I'm fine."

" _Are you sure?_ " her mother pressed anxiously, her voice slightly out of sync from the video on the screen, "don't just say you're fine to try and keep me from being worried."

"I'm not-"

"Because I'm _already_ ridiculously worried."

Levy laughed, readjusting the phone slightly so her mother could see her properly in the camera, "I'm swear, I'm fine. I'm…" she paused and quickly glanced over her shoulder, shooting him a soft smile, "I'm in good company."

"Who were you looking at?" her mother said sharply and Gajeel felt his stomach _drop_. At that moment, he wanted nothing more to run from the room and bury himself under his bed for an eternity. This was definitely _not_ how he had planned on meeting Levy's family. He'd already messed up the whole 'meeting Jet and Droy' thing and he wasn't entirely looking forward to getting on the bad side of her mother as well.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion as Levy turned the camera towards him. He tried to tell his legs to move, that he needed to get out of there and _hide_ before she saw him, but they refused to obey and he remained rooted on the spot unable to move even an inch. Out of the corner of his vision, he could see Natsu, Jet and Droy leaning against the opposite counter, sniggering at him and he wondered if he really _was_ sweating as much as he imagined he was. Surreptitiously, he wiped his upper lips with the back of his palm and realised, to his dismay, that he _was_ sweating as much as he thought he was.

Yes, there were very few things that truly scared Gajeel, but meeting his girlfriend's mother after being the reason for a gross invasion of privacy was _definitely_ one of them.

He audibly swallowed as Levy smiled weakly down at her mother, her cheeks gaining a light blush, and said the words he'd been dreading.

"You remember the guy I told you about?"

If the situation didn't have him so close to possibly passing out, Gajeel might've laughed at the indignant _'you told_ her _about him, and not us_?' from Jet, but, as it stood, he was too busy trying to regulate his breathing and could only stare dumbly at the small screen Levy was facing his way.

"The one from your lectures?"

Gajeel rose an eyebrow, noting way Levy was suddenly doing her best to avoid his gaze. He wasn't entirely sure what to think about the fact Levy had had discussions about him with her mother. He supposed it was flattering in a way, but he couldn't help but wonder just _what_ she had told her. Filing it away to ask her about later, he refocused his attention back on Levy and the phone.

"Well," Levy said slowly, the blush on her cheeks even more prominent, "things…happened."

Gajeel couldn't help the quiet snort of laughter from falling from his lips at that. He supposed 'things happened' was an accurate way of explaining the friendship turned relationship they had with each other.

"And _now_ ," Levy said pointedly, glaring up at him, "well, now he's my boyfriend. And...also a prince. The Crown Prince of Fiore to be exact."

"You kept _that_ quiet," her mother said, sounding mildly put out by this fact and Gajeel had to wonder how close their relationship was. Did Levy tell her everything? Did she know all about his awkward flirting that he secretly hoped Levy would forget about?

"About that," Levy laughed nervously, "I didn't actually know about his...title, until this morning."

For several painful seconds, silence engulfed the room. Even Natsu, Jet and Droy had stopped laughing at his misfortune as they waited for Levy's mother to react to the recently revealed information.

He squirmed awkwardly where he stood as the words left her mouth, bracing himself for the inevitable explosion from the phone.

"You didn't _know_?" her voice was oddly quiet, and Gajeel was forcibly reminded of the phrase 'the calm before the storm'. He swallowed nervously, trying not to imagine how bad this particular storm could get. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Droy wincing into the palm of his hand as he recoiled backwards ever so slightly and he realised he had his answer: very bad.

"No," Levy admitted just as quietly, "but, I understand his reasoning, so _really_ it's not that bad."

"Not that bad?"

_Oh God_ , he groaned inwardly, this was going horribly. If he didn't do something fast, his reputation would be irreparably ruined in her mother's eyes - if it wasn't ruined already.

"Well, there's a lot of contributing factors so rea-" she paused, "Gajeel?"

He tried to shoot her what he _hoped_ was a confident smile, but he felt pretty certain it looked more like he was trying not to wince instead, especially considering the way her brows furrowed ever so slightly when she looked up at him.

"Can I…" oh _God,_ he was stammering, he hadn't stammered since he was about _seven_ , "can I speak to her?"

It felt as if he were moving on autopilot as he watched Levy hesitate for a second or two before she angled the phone so the camera was directly on him. For another agonisingly long few seconds it seemed like everyone in the room was holding their breath, waiting for the inevitable explosion.

"Mum," Levy said eventually, once the camera had adjusted fully, "this is Gajeel. Gajeel, this is my mother, Ardelle."

Gajeel watched as Ardelle leaned forwards in her seat, grey eyes narrowing ever so slightly as she surveyed him. Aside from a few small differences, the family resemblance was almost uncanny. He swallowed nervously, taking in the smattering of freckles that covered her face, aside from a deep scar along the bridge of her nose, and the mane of wavy blue hair, a few shades darker than Levy's.

"So," she said in a voice that was somehow both soft and unexpectedly commanding, "you're the reason my daughters face is all over the news?"

"That's correct, ma'am," he managed to choke out, immediately kicking himself mentally over his choice of language. _That's correct, ma'am_? Who the hell even said ma'am anymore? Over in their corner, far out of Ardelle's sight, Gajeel could see Natsu practically doubling over in a silent fit of laughter and he _knew_ it would be a while before his cousin let him live this moment down - if he ever did.

To his surprise, she also appeared to find his phrasing at least a tiny bit amusing, if the way her lips curled upwards just enough for him to notice before they curved back into their former scowl was anything to go by.

She huffed slightly, leaning back into her chair, "it's been a long time since someone's called me ma'am."

"Uh, I didn't mea-"

"Don't tease him," Levy laughed, sliding up to Gajeel to peek from behind his shoulder, "he's nervous enough."

By this point, Natus was practically on the floor, his whole body vibrating from the silent laughter and Jet and Droy weren't faring any better. Droy was trying to smother his laughter with a teatowel and Jet was clutching onto the counter for dear life, so he didn't end up like Natsu on the floor.

"He should be," Ardelle hummed, eyebrow raised in a way that was so Levy-like, he found himself doing the faintest of double takes.

"So," she leaned forwards, lacing her fingers together so she could rest her chin in the palm of her hands, "what happens now?"

"We're at my place at the moment," he told her, scratching the back of his neck nervously, "they're all free to stay here until this dies down." He nodded towards Jet and Droy, making it clear that they were just as welcome as Levy. He still felt a little strange letting the two of them into his life so easily but, he figured, it wasn't like they were strangers (he'd listened to Levy talk about them enough times to feel like he knew them personally himself) and knew he'd feel at least a tiny bit guilty if he left them to the press without any protection. At least if they stayed with him, they had Lily. Though, he was painfully aware that there was only so much Lily could do.

Ardelle arched a brow again, " _will_ this die down?"

"Eventually," he said honestly, "it'll probably be a bit crazy for a week or two and then," he shrugged, "they get bored and move on." It was a weird cycle, but he'd become fairly accustomed to it over the years. When things happened to his family, the press would jump on them, only fading away once it became clear that public interest had dwindled.

"Uh, ma'am, uh-"

Ardelle laughed, her shoulders heaving up and down as the chuckle wracked through her body, "Ardelle. You can call me Ardelle."

He nodded jerkily, more than aware of the fact his face was horribly red, his palms sweaty, and that Jet, Droy, and Natsu weren't even bothering to try and smother their laughter anymore, and were loudly hooting in their corner of the kitchen. He sighed, knowing there wasn't a chance in hell he was _ever_ going to live this down. His only chance of reprieve would be succeeding in bribing Natsu for his silence before he inevitably told the rest of their cousins about this moment.

"Uh- Ardelle," he said slowly, forcing himself to keep eye contact with her, "this isn't- I didn't want to put Levy in a situation like this," he said hurriedly, his tone lowering ever so slightly, "I was going to tell her. Things just-"

"Things happened?" she asked softly, her lips curving upwards into a barely there smirk as she echoed Levy's choice of phrasing from earlier.

He nodded sheepishly, wondering if it were possible for this meeting to go any worse than it already had, "I guess that's one way to put it."

She hummed again, chin still resting in the palms of her hands as she surveyed him. She had very sharp eyes, Gajeel realised, watching them narrow ever so slightly as she stared at him. Sharp and calculating eyes.

"She's safe with you?" she asked suddenly, "all of them - Jet and Droy too?"

"Yes ma- Ardelle," he said quickly.

This time she nodded, finally leaning back into her chair again, "I can't pretend like I'm happy with the way this has all unfolded, but," she shrugged, "you've done a good job keeping her safe-" she paused, glancing up at him with a look he couldn't quite decipher etched onto her face, "I saw the news report."

_Oh_. He swallowed, glancing nervously at Levy before turning back to her mother. "I won't let them get that close to her again."

"I know you won't," she exhaled lightly, her lips twitching upwards into a small smile. "Levy, love?" she said suddenly.

"Right here, mum," she said, leaning forwards so she was in view of the camera again.

"Are you alright, staying with him? All of you?" she said a little louder, and Gajeel knew she was directing her question to Jet and Droy as well. He wondered how close they all really were. From the way Levy had described her relationship with the two men, he got the impression they'd been friends since childhood.

"We're fine aunty," Droy called, while Jet nodded eagerly by his side, despite the fact Ardelle couldn't see him anyway.

"You heard him," Levy smiled, "we're fine, so you don't need to rush over here."

" _Ha!_ " Ardelle snorted, "of course I'm coming down."

"You don't need to though," Levy sighed, absentmindedly leaning against him as she spoke to her, "we're safe, we're fine, you do-"

"Levy, your face was plastered all over the news _without_ your consent. That's borderline illegal and I'm pretty sure there is some obscure law that makes it _actually_ illegal. Not to even think about the _gross_ invasion of privacy. Ha! No, no, no," she rose both eyebrows and shook her head, "I have a few strings I can pull and..."

"She's a lawyer," Levy mumbled, turning away from her mother to glance up at Gajeel, apparently correctly deciphering the look of confusion he knew was on his face, "a pretty good one-"

"A great one," Ardelle said loudly, cutting across her daughter, "so no arguing, I think the earliest train I can get, will get me in for...tomorrow afternoon?"

The overwhelming feeling of fear from earlier was back with a vengeance. _Sure_ , she no longer looked like she wanted to lunge for him for putting her daughter in this situation, but he wasn't entirely sure he was _ready_ to meet her. Especially under these circumstances.

He watched as Levy tried (and failed) to convince her mother stay put a few more times before she shrugged her shoulders in defeat and promised she'd send her his address as soon as they hung up the call.

"I should let you go," Levy said eventually, "you probably have several angry phone calls to make."

" _Many_ angry phone calls," Ardelle laughed, "Jet? Droy?"

"Yes, aunty?" they called in unison, pushing themselves off the counter a little, to peer over at the phone.

"Try not to tease them _too_ much," she said knowingly. So it wasn't only Natsu's teasing he would have to put up with for the foreseeable future, but theirs too? Gajeel's throat suddenly felt very dry.

"Levy, love? Can I speak to you, in...private?" Ardelle said suddenly, glancing almost imperceptibly at Gajeel before she moved back to looking at Levy.

Levy frowned, but nodded, shrugging her shoulders apologetically as she hurried out of the kitchen, still holding the phone above her face. Once the door swung shut behind her, all hell let loose.

Natsu finally let out the loud _hoot_ of laughter he'd been doing a, quite frankly, terrible job of holding in, while Jet sauntered over to him and swung an arm round his shoulders.

"Ma'am?"

" _Don't_ ," Gajeel growled, shrugging the lanky man off of him, "it was a slip of the tongue."

" _Ma'am_ ," Droy echoed, clutching onto Natsu as the two of them practically collapsed beside the counter, "he called her _ma'am_."

"Don't make me regret letting you stay here," he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest and forcing his best 'I'm a scary guy, I swear' look onto his face. Not that it did much good.

"Sorry about that," Levy muttered, tossing the phone back to Jet as she reentered the room. Gajeel frowned, noting that her face was _ridiculously_ red.

"Why're you so red, Lev?" Jet asked, apparently just as confused as he.

"I'm not!" she squeaked, "this is how I always look."

"You're brighter than my hair," Natsu said simply, raising an eyebrow as he stared at her, "you OK?"

"I'm fine," she insisted, running a nervous hand through her locks, "just...just something my mum said."

"And what was that?" Gajeel asked, still frowning as she settled herself by his side. Silence followed his question for a few moments as she fidgeted awkwardly with her hair. After a second or two, she peeked up at him and offered him a nervous smile.

"She said she likes you."

Judging by the redness of her face, Gajeel was more than willing to bet that Ardelle's actual phrasing had been something a little different, but he wasn't going to push it. He didn't need to hand Natsu, Jet and Droy any _more_ ammunition. Though, it seemed they'd already figured out the same thing as he.

"Ah," Droy hummed, nodding sagely, "you know what that means, right?"

Jet's lips curved upwards into a smug grin as he, once again, attempted (and failed) to drape an arm around Gajeel's shoulders, "welcome to the family."

* * *

"It's called sleep," Natsu grumbled, tugging a pillow from behind his head to toss at Gajeel, "try it sometime."

"Sorry," he muttered, dodging just in time to avoid being whacked in the face with a cushion. It wasn't as if he hadn't tried to sleep, but it was proving rather difficult.

He glanced to his left where Levy lay, curled up by his side, her brows furrowed even in her sleep. Every now and then she would sigh and toss a little, poking him in the ribs or, once or twice, flat out slapping him as she rolled over. She was a restless sleeper, but she wasn't really the problem.

As if on cue, Droy let out a particularly loud snore, rolling over onto his side to whack Jet lightly in the face. Jet stirred in his sleep, long limbs jutting out in weird directions so that Gajeel had to dodge to avoid being kicked in the stomach. Again.

How had this happened? He'd tried several times to offer his guests his bedroom and had been adamant that he'd take the couch but, several hours later, here he was. Sitting upright in his bed, trying to work out just how he'd been roped into this weird slumber party.

He blamed Levy. She'd curled up by his side while they watched a movie and, before he'd had the chance to slip out of bed and make his way to the couch, she'd fallen asleep, effectively trapping him in his place. Absentmindedly, he wondered if this had been her plan all along. She'd always been determined to have him bond with Jet and Droy and what better way to bond than this?

It wasn't like he wasn't used to it. His room back home in Fiore had been overrun by his cousins more times than he could count, but at least he knew them. He knew about Sting's snoring habit (and that the only way to avoid it was to make sure he slept on his side), the way Rogue would grind his teeth mercilessly in his sleep, or how Cobra would speak sometimes - often revealing hilarious secrets he adamantly denied the next morning.

And it didn't exactly help that he still wasn't feeling his best. His talk earlier with Levy had helped to calm some of his anxieties to some extent, but the worry was still there. Nagging at him from the recesses of his mind. They'd managed to make it through the first day of chaos relatively unscatched, but what would happen tomorrow? What happened when they had to return back to school for their exams? He frowned, leaning against his bedframe as he glanced down at Levy.

" _Sleeeeeep_ ," Natsu groaned again, sitting upright in his portion of the bed, "I can literally hear you brooding and it's getting distracting."

He sighed and glanced at his alarm clock, brows raising in surprise as he realised just how late it was. Levy stirred again, a soft sighing falling from her lips as she wiggled a little closer, fingers clenching his shirt tightly in her sleep.

Making his decision, he gently peeled her off him, replacing her makeshift pillow (his stomach) with a real pillow before she felt the sudden change and woke up.

"M' gonna go and talk to Lily," he muttered, trying not to disturb the others as he climbed out of bed and began padding quietly towards the door, "go to sleep."

Natsu rolled his eyes, burying himself further under the blankets so his "I've been _trying_ to do that for the last hour," retort ended up coming out a little muffled.

As quietly as he could, Gajeel tugged open his bedroom door and slipped outside, shutting it behind him before he made his way down the short corridor. Usually, Lily would spend the night in his own apartment, just a few doors down from his, but, given the situation, the man had promised he'd stay close in case anything happened. Not that he thought it would, his apartment building had remarkably good security, but Gajeel was grateful for the offering nonetheless. He'd always felt that little bit safer with Lily by his side. His reputation followed him and there were very few people who were foolish enough to purposely get on Lily's bad side.

He frowned as he entered the living room, expecting to find Lily sat on the couch flicking through news reports or fixing himself a meal. Instead, he was greeted with silence.

"Lil'?" he called, stepping further into the room as he flicked the light switch on, frown intensifying when nobody called back.

"Lily?" he called again, worry pooling in his stomach with each passing second of silence. This wasn't like Lily. Lily had always been a fairly relaxed bodyguard, trusting Gajeel enough to not put himself in danger and do something stupid but, on the rare occasions something had happened that actually required Gajeel to need protection, he had always been there, performing his duties with unwavering professionalism.

It wasn't that he was worried for Lily. No, he knew the man could more than handle himself in a tricky situation. But he did have to wonder what the circumstances were that had led him to leave the apartment without letting him know. Were there press outside? It was 4am but the paparazzi were notoriously tenacious and he didn't doubt for a second that at least one or two would be camped outside, waiting with cameras, eager to get a snapshot of them when they eventually had to leave.

He swallowed nervously. If there were press outside, maybe one of them had managed to get into the building. They wouldn't be able to get into his own apartment of course but wh-

He froze as he heard the sound of the front door slowly being pushed open.

"-just over here."

Lily? He frowned. That was definitely Lily's voice he'd heard. But he was talking to someone. He trusted Lily without even having to consider it, but this was...strange at best and downright worrying at the worst.

"Oh, it's much nicer than it looked in all his photos."

His throat suddenly felt very dry. He recognised the voice. Recognised it as clearly as if it were his own.

He stood, frozen in his spot as he watched Lily enter the living room, followed closely by his-

"Mum?" he managed to croak out, feeling his legs buckle ever so slightly as she stepped into the room. Even from their relative distance from each other, he could see the slight curve in her lips as she stared at him.

Voeda stepped further into the room, grinning widely with her arms outstretched as she approached him.

"Hello, love," she murmured, pulling him until a warm hug that he couldn't help but reciprocrate. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed tightly, resting his chin on the crown of her head. In his periphery, he watched as Lily nodded to him, before sliding into the kitchen and closing the door behind him.

"What're you doing here?" he asked once she pulled away, "is everything alright back home? Is Dad OK?"

She laughed quietly, reaching up to cup his cheeks with her hands, "your face is all over the news and you can only worry about us?"

_Oh_. Of course she was here about _that_. He forced himself to maintain eye contact with her. "Sorry."

"Sorry?" Voeda frowned, pulling back to look at him properly, "there's nothing to apologise for, Gajeel. Really," she shook her head and moved to sit down on the couch, "you've done nothing wrong."

"But I-"

"Ssh," she patted the seat next to her and waited for him to sit down, "I know it's not easy, growing up like this," she murmured, taking his hand in her own, "this is exactly why we sent you to Pergrande," she laughed dryly, "so you'd have the chance to have at least a few years without having to worry about something like this happening."

He snorted, leaning into her, "that went well."

"It did. Up to a point." She squeezed his hand gently and began rubbing circles over it with her thumb before glancing up at him, a teasing smile tugging at her lips, "how were we to know you'd make such...interesting friends?"

He could feel the heat rushing to his cheeks and he pointedly looked away, wondering when he'd ever stop falling victim to his mother's teasing. It was bad enough with Natsu.

"She seems sweet," Voeda said simply, covering her mouth with her hand to stop her smile from betraying her, "is she…"

"She's here," he said, knowing what his mother was asking, "and two of her friends."

Voeda hummed. "And, when were you going to tell us about her? Your Uncle Igneel is feeling _very_ hurt that you didn't tell us. And Wendy?" she pretended to exhale a breath of air, "I _think_ she said something about upgrading Natsu to the position of favourite cousin."

Gajeel snorted, wondering just what it was about his family that seemed to produce some of the most dramatic people he had ever met in his life. "Wendy doesn't have favourites."

"Ah, but if she _did_ , it'd be Natsu now," Voeda laughed.

It was strange, he decided as he watched his mother laugh, all his earlier worries and anxieties felt like they had been washed away, just by her mere presence in the room. He wondered if this how Levy had felt speaking to _her_ mother on the phone.

"How did you meet?"

He groaned, sinking further into the couch. "Do we...do we _have_ to do this, right now?"

"Well, no, but wouldn't you rather tell _me_ everything, so I can tell the rest of them? Or would you rather relive this moment five times over, telling your father, your uncle, your aunt, Wendy, Sting, Ro-"

"OK, I get, I get it," he grumbled, paling slightly at the thought of having to tell each and every member of his family all the details of his love life. "We have the same lectures."

Voeda raised an eyebrow, and he knew she was debating on whether to push the 'first meeting' question a little further. Thankfully, she appeared to decide against it, and moved on. "You never mentioned her before."

He shrugged. What was he supposed to have said? "Hello, yes, I'm fine and eating properly. Also, there's a really cute girl in my class and I've made a fool of myself in front of her about five times now, but she still seems interested"? _No_ , thank you.

"Is it serious?"

It didn't seem possible, but he somehow managed to sink further into the couch. "You already know the answer to that," he grumbled, purposely avoiding any and all eye contact with his mother. He was a creature of habit and he knew his mother knew, possibly better than anyone else, that it took a lot for him to let someone into his life.

"True," she conceded, and he could hear the laughter in her voice, "but I promised Igneel and Wendy I'd be thorough with my questioning, you know how they like a good story."

He snorted again, knowing only too well the flair for dramatics his uncle had and, apparently in Natsu's absence, Igneel had taken to teaching Wendy some of his more eccentric ways. He always knew it wasn't a good idea to leave her alone with him.

"So, are you going to give them their story, or do I have to ma- _oh_."

Gajeel frowned, peering over the top of Voeda's head to get a look at whatever it was that had captured her attention. His eyes widened and he felt something large stick in his throat as he caught sight of Levy, standing in the door, smiling nervously at them. She'd switched out of the pyjamas he'd last seen her in, and was now where a pair of sweatpants and a large sweatshirt that looked suspiciously like the one _he'd_ been wearing and had tossed onto the floor just hours earlier.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly, stepping further into the room, "Lily...ah, Lily messaged Natsu and told him you had company and I…" she visibly swallowed, and Gajeel noticed the way she had balled up the end of the sweatshirt she wore into tiny little fists. "I thought I should introduce myself."

Absentmindedly, he took some solace in the fact that he wasn't the only one who apparently got a little tongue tied when it came to meeting parents. Deciding he couldn't put her through this any longer, he pushed himself up from the couch and made his way over to her, grabbing her hand to tug her a little closer to his mother. He didn't miss the way Voeda's eyes widened slightly as she watched him lace his fingers around Levy's own and he inwardly groaned, knowing that would be fed back in her information to Igneel and Wendy.

Feeling a strange sense of deja vu, Gajeel cleared his throat and inclined his head towards Levy. "Mum," he said slowly, well aware that Levy's palm was incredibly sweaty in his own. Once again, he couldn't help but feel a little glad that it was affecting her in the same way it had affected him. "This is Levy, my-" he paused, before deciding it was time to take the plunge, "my girlfriend."

Beside him, he felt Levy stiffen ever so slightly before she seemed to melt into his touch. "Lev, this is my mum, Voeda."

"It's so lovely to meet you, your...your majesty?" she managed to stammer out, her face burning as the phrase 'your majesty' slipped out. She moved to bow and Gajeel quickly shook his head, trying (and failing) to stop the amused grin from spreading across his lips.

"And you, my dear," Voeda said softly, a soft smile usually reserved for friends and family etched onto her face already.

Gajeel couldn't help his grin widening as Levy heaved a sigh of relief and tentatively sat down on the sofa next to his mother.

What was it Jet said earlier?

_Welcome to the family._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *toots own horn* we've done it folks, we've reached the halfway point! sorry this chapter took slightly longer for me to finish but you know - life. thank you to silv for listening to me cry about this chapter and bouncing ideas off of me to motivate me to actually finish it!
> 
> as you can probably tell, one of my greatest weaknesses is throwing gajeel into situations that he would rather not be in lmao, so the whole 'meet the parents' thing was a great chance for me to do that. also, since a couple people mentioned it, yes i'm also very fond of a softer gajeel than probably a lot of people are used to and i am self pronounced president of the 'gajeel is not as much as jerk as people make him out to be' fanclub~
> 
> next chapter is where the fun begins (not that this fic hasn't been totally fun already) but you know, the next chapter is where it really gets fun
> 
> you should also consider following me on tumblr if you want progress updates (aka me crying about this a lot), i'm either at gajeelredfox or gildarts ~
> 
> anyway, thank you for the continued kind comments, favourites, follows and everything, pls continue with that by reviewing thank you thank you xoxo
> 
> **reminder: Ardelle and Voeda are Silver Inklett's OCs**


	6. Chapter 6

Levy sighed contentedly, leaning further into her seat as the pilot began his introductory speech, only paying the flight attendants near her a cursory glance as they began their safety demonstration.

In the seats behind her, she could hear Jet and Droy bickering over the armrest while, to her right, her mother sat flicking impatiently through the inflight magazine.

Smiling a little, she turned her head to the left unsurprised to find Gajeel gripping his own armrest while glaring out of the window. Biting back the need for laughter, she raised herself slightly in her seat and peeked over the headrests in front of her to find Natsu doing the exact same thing in his own seat. Lily caught her eye and winked at her, shaking his head just a little at the absurdity of it all.

"You weren't kidding about the whole airsickness thing, were you?" she murmured as she readjusted herself in her seat.

"Why would we lie about that?" Gajeel grumbled, wincing slightly as the plane began to slowly inch forwards.

She shrugged, still doing her best to smother her laughter at the sight of them both. "Well, I could buy it happening to one of you, but both of you? It does sound a little weird."

"It runs in the family," Natsu called from his seat, sounding oddly subdued, "we all get it."

"Not Wendy," Gajeel said quietly, his fingers gripping into the plush leather of the armrest as the plane began to speed up.

"She _cheats,_ " Natsu groaned, and Levy didn't need to see him to know that he too was probably holding onto the armrest for dear life. Though, Levy didn't find out just how their youngest cousin managed to cheat the apparently hereditary motion sickness because as the plane began to ascend and both Natsu and Gajeel's eyes squeezed tightly shut as their heads lolled backwards against their headrests.

Knowing she wouldn't be getting any conversation out of either man anytime soon, she reclined back into her own seat, intent on getting a least a few hours rest before the madness resumed. For the first time in two weeks, she felt oddly at peace. It felt strange to remember that almost exactly two weeks ago, she'd been sat in her living room, trying desperately to keep herself composed while she stared at photographs of herself being splashed across the screen. With a start, she realised that this would be the first moment in two weeks where she genuinely didn't have to worry about the press jumping out from behind a corner with loud, angry questions spewing from their mouths and big, invasive cameras in their hands.

She frowned as she leaned back further into her seat. At times, she found it difficult to believe she'd managed to survive the last two weeks with her sanity still in check.

Going from being an unknown student, where your only concern in the world was making sure you had enough money in your bank account each month to pay your rent, to someone whose face had been plastered over magazines and news reports around the world in an instance was something she was still having difficulty coming to terms with.

Going back to university had been the worst. A part of her had wanted to hide away for the last two weeks of term and say 'screw you' to the exams she'd been studying for for the last three months. She could always defer after all, and she didn't doubt that her lecturers wouldn't be entirely opposed to giving her an extension, given the circumstances after all. But another part of her, a stronger part of her, wouldn't allow it.

A soft laugh fell from her lips as she remembered the incredulous look Gajeel had given her when she told him she wanted to attend their lessons. His mother had also seemed at least a little surprised when she'd revealed that she intended on completing her exams (and passing them all with flying colours if she had anything to do with it) but, unlike Gajeel, she had quickly managed to school her expression. Before she'd left to return back to Fiore, she had even asked Levy if she wanted a bodyguard for the next few weeks.

Looking back on it now, Levy wondered if perhaps she should've said yes. At the time, she'd simply laughed the offer off, making an offhand joke about having Jet and Droy by her side ("those two are as good as any bodyguard") but, as the days progressed, she couldn't help herself from wishing they had more than just Lily on their side.

Jet and Droy tried their best of course. Whenever they walked across campus they would be by her side, shielding her from cameras and journalists and, once or twice, they even managed to pull of a pretty good distraction (something Natsu was oddly envious of) to get her away and off to class. But it was draining for them too. She saw it in their eyes; the way they would hesitate ever so slightly before opening a door, or the way their breath would catch in their throat every time a news report flashed across the screen and they'd get glimpses of their names and faces embedded in the story.

It wasn't fair.

They hadn't asked for this. Though, if she was honest with herself, neither had she. Her mother had done her best to try and scare the press off and, to some extent, it had worked. They no longer waited directly, outside her home out of fear Ardelle would swoop down and slap them with a lawsuit so densely worded it would take months for them to pick through it. Instead, they stalked her favourite haunts. The university campus, the library, her favourite bookshop, Gajeel's gym, the public gardens...everywhere and anywhere the four of them were likely to show up that wasn't private property, the press would be there. Waiting.

And that included her job.

In hindsight, returning back to work hadn't been one of her better ideas. But she'd been determined to not let the havoc going on around her ruin her life and had, admittedly rather stubbornly, insisted on picking back up her shifts at the small café in the city center. At first, her boss had been ecstatic at the extra attention she brought to the café, until he realised that the people following her around with cameras and microphones didn't actually want to eat anything, they just wanted to get a shot of her in her uniform or behind the till.

After four days of this, her boss had sent her home telling her she could come back when everything died down a little. She'd been tempted to argue with him but, with all the press constantly following her and standing outside the café when her boss finally put his foot down and told them they weren't allowed inside, they'd had very few actual customers and she was beginning to worry she was doing his business some genuine damage. So, reluctantly, she'd agreed to leave for a while, praying that the meagre amount of savings she'd managed to amass over the last year or so would tide her over until everything blew over.

_If_ it blew over.

Still frowning a little, she glanced over to her left. Gajeel still sat with his eyes shut, his fingers laced together over his chest, though he looked a little calmer now and she figured the worst of the airsickness was over and done with. She sighed, a sad smile tugging at her lips as she watched him murmur quiet words of encouragement to himself under his breath. _Would_ there be an end in sight if she stayed with him? He had made it very clear that this was his life and that she more than welcome to be a part of it. But only if she could handle the chaos. Could she?

Over the course of the last two weeks, he'd given her the chance to leave and have her life return to normal more times than she could count. She heaved a sigh, remembering the way she'd dropped into his bed one night, more tired and stressed than she'd ever been in her life, and about two more cameras being shoved in her face from completely breaking down. He'd pulled her up beside him, wrapping his arms around her waist as she curled up next to him and told her, once again, that she didn't have to go through this. That they could break up and that would be it. The press would be done with her. She'd be just a blip in his past as far as they were concerned and she'd be able to get on with her life and pretend like he'd never happened.

Even now, she was ashamed to admit that she'd been tempted. Only a little bit, but the temptation had definitely reared its ugly head. It had been a particularly trying day, with one annoyingly persistent reporter following her around campus shouting out horrible, horrible, questions. Asking her about her relationship with Jet and Droy and 'if the Prince minds how close you are with them?'. The insinuation had been incredibly blatant, and it had taken all her self control not whirl around and slap the reporter. She could just about handle her name being dragged through the mud, but not her boys. _Never_ her boys.

And so, when Gajeel had told her that he'd understand if she wanted to end things, she'd been tempted. She'd opened her mouth to say the words, the five little words that would bring an end to all this madness and let her go back to living a normal life, but the words wouldn't come out.

She was selfish.

Even despite all the madness, despite the stress it brought her day in and day out, despite the knock on effect it was having on her boys, she didn't want it to end. Gajeel made her happy. That much was easy for anyone to see - and Jet and Droy ( _and_ her mother) had relished in teasing her about it every day for the last two weeks - but she couldn't help but worry.

Everyone had a breaking point, and she knew it was only a matter of time before she inevitably reached hers.

* * *

" _No._ "

"Why?"

"Because he won't like it."

"He'll _love_ it."

"He won't. It'll be the very opposite, in fact."

"Why're you such a spoilsport? You never let us have any fun."

"I do let you hav- Wait. What do you mean _us_?"

"Well," Igneel said as he leant against the wall in Metalicana's study, "Wendy's coming with me as well, of course."

"Of... _course_ ," Metalicana sighed, groaning slightly as he dropped his head into the palm of his hands. What had he done to deserve a brother like Igneel? Had he been a criminal in a past life or something? Maybe a poacher? Was that it? Had he been a poacher in a previous life and now he had been saddled with Igneel as a punishment for his evil crimes?

"Oi," Igneel scowled, crossing his arms over his chest, "are you doing that thing where you ask yourself what you did to deserve a brother like me?"

" _Yes_ ," Metalicana sighed, "and you need to stop trying to take Wendy under your wing. There's only so much Granny can take. You know she's _still_ mad about that fencing incident?"

"Why?" Igneel asked, looking genuinely confused, "it was only a little bit of blood. No harm, no foul. And besides, Wendy enjoyed it, didn't she?"

"She almost took your _eye out_."

Igneel waved a nonchalant hand in the air, "accidents happen."

"She was _seven!_ What were you thinking taking her fencing and giving her an _actual_ sword?"

"I was _thinking_ that my favourite niece could do with a new hobby."

"She's your _only_ niece."

"Ah," Igneel wiggled his eyes in a way Metalicana knew could only spell trouble, "that is, until my _favourite_ nephew returns this afternoon with his _friend_ ," he practically purred the final word as he leant against Metalicana's desk, winking conspiratorially at him.

"You are _not_ going to meet him at the airport and you are _not_ going to traumatise that poor girl," Metalicana said firmly, already imagining the scenarios that were probably running through Igneel's mind, "she's been through enough already."

"I'm not going to 'traumatise' her," Igneel groaned, rolling his eyes a little, "I'm just going to pick them up from the airport. And, have you forgotten, _my_ son is going to be there too? Would you _really_ deprive a father of greeting his _only_ child at the airport after months of not seeing him?"

"If that father is you, yes."

"Your callousness knows no bounds," Igneel sighed, sinking into one of the armchairs opposite him. "What if I promised to attend all of your engagements on your behalf for the next week?"

"You ever heard the saying, if it's too good to be true, it probably is?"

"Well _this_ isn't. I swear, I'll go to all of them. And I won't even complain," Igneel said, grinning widely.

"Even the meeting with Ivan next week?" Metalicana asked, unable to keep the interest out of his tone. He'd been trying desperately to think of a way out of a meeting with Ivan Dreyar, a leader of a small country just north of Fiore, for _weeks_.

"I'll even go and meet the prick," Igneel said brightly, "sorry, sorry," he added after seeing the way Metalicana's eyes narrowed slightly, "I'll even go and meet _Ivan_."

"And you won't complain?"

"Not even a _tiny_ bit."

Metalicana hummed for a few seconds, trying to weigh up the pros and cons and the situation. "And you _swear_ you're not going to traumatise the girl?"

"I'm offended you would even ask something like that."

" _Igneel_."

"Oh, bloody hell. _Fine_ ," he huffed, "I swear I will not traumatise your son's girlfriend, though _how_ you even expect me to do som-"

"Alright, alright, you can go," Metalicana said quickly, cutting Igneel off before he got too far into his rant, "and take Wendy too. I know she's probably listening outside."

" _Thank you uncle!_ " a muffled voice called from behind the closed door.

Biting back a chuckle, Metalicana waved Igneel away, rolling his eyes a little as the man practically leapt out of his chair hollering, "Wendy dear, grab your shoes!"

He sighed loudly once Igneel had disappeared. When he found out that Voeda had invited the girl and her friends to visit Fiore once their exams were over, as a way of taking a break from all the madness (and apologising for inadvertently causing it), he had known his youngest brother would be interested. The whole thing had Igneel written all over it. The chance to tease Gajeel? Check. The chance to tease Gajeel _and_ his girlfriend? Check.

He sighed again, leaning back into his chair as he murmured a quick word of apology to his son for the man he had just unleashed on him.

* * *

Her first thought, as the stepped off the plane and began making their way towards a long black car they had been told would be waiting for them, that it was much hotter than she'd imagined it would be.

It wasn't the nice, strip off and lay in your back garden, kind of heat she'd become accustomed to in Pergrande, and it wasn't the sweltering island temperatures she come to associate with Tenrou, but it _was_ hotter than she'd expected.

"It's not that bad," Natsu cackled, eyeing the bead sweat the was currently making its way down her face, "you get used to it."

"Where's the _wind_?" Droy moaned, tugging at the sleeves of his shirt.

"I like it," Ardelle hummed, dragging her suitcase behind her as she stepped forward, her sleeves already rolled up to her elbows, and the top few buttons of her blouse undone, "it's nice."

"You'll survive," Levy snorted, turning around to glance at Droy, "it's only for two days."

"Two days is enough time to die of dehydration or heat stroke," Jet grumbled.

"How're you doing?" Gajeel asked quietly, ignoring Jet and Droy in favour of sliding up beside her as they crossed the pathway set out for them.

"Hot," she managed to spit out, wiping the bead of sweat away from her face with the back of her palm, "I wasn't expecting it to be this hot."

"Wimps, the lot of ya," Natsu laughed, jogging on the spot as if to emphasise how little the heat had affected him, "ah, there's the car," he nodded towards the black car with tinted windows parked just a few feet away from them. " _Shotgun_."

"Is he always this energetic?" Ardelle murmured, smiling a little as she watched Natsu dart towards the car.

"Pretty much," Gajeel shrugged, approaching the car himself, "you get used to him." He placed a hand on the door handle, then turned back to face Levy, "it's only about a thir-"

" _Gajeel_!"

Levy and the others watched in awe, and mild fascination, as a blue blur darted out from the car and wrapped itself around Gajeel's waist, sending him stumbling backwards. Gajeel blinked in confusion for a few seconds before his lips split into a wide grin and he lifted the blue blur into the air.

"Oi," Natsu grumbled, "how come _I_ didn't get a greeting like that?"

"Sorry Natsu," the short blue haired girl said sheepishly when Gajeel finally allowed her to drop back onto the ground. Levy watched, grinning, as the girl detangled herself from Gajeel and then gave Natsu the same treatment, practically leaping into his arms as she squeezed the life out of him.

"That's Wendy," Gajeel said, shaking his head just a little as he watched his youngest cousin detach herself from Natsu, only to turn towards Levy and smile shyly, "she'-"

"Hey, hey, hey," a voice called from inside the car, "do the introductions in the car, where there's air conditioning." Natsu's face split into a wide grin and, before anyone had even blinked, he was rushing forwards, leaping into the car.

"Sorry," Wendy said sheepishly, shaking her head at Natsu a little before she followed him back into the car, gesturing for them to do the same. They glanced over to Gajeel, and Levy wasn't totally surprised to see he was halfheartedly glaring at the car.

"Come on," she sighed, bumping his arm with her shoulder, she had no doubt that a very thorough interrogation waited for them inside the car, and she didn't see any point in delaying it. "Let's get it over with."

"Let's get _him_ over with," Gajeel grumbled, "there's still _my_ dad and then my aunt and then _him_ again probably."

"Alright, alright," Levy hummed, shoving him gently in the back to get him moving. She glanced behind her and saw Jet and Droy were staring at the car in confusion, while her mother looked like she was enjoying everything immensely.

Sighing one last final time, Gajeel climbed into the car and Levy followed, yanking her carry on bag with her.

"Hi, uncle," Gajeel muttered, purposely looking out of the window as Jet and Droy and Ardelle climbed in afterwards, identical looks of interest plastered over each of their faces.

"Hello my _favourite_ nephew," a man, who Levy could only assume was Natsu's father judging by the mess of wild pink hair that sat atop his head and extremely Natsu-esque grin etched onto his face, "why don't you introduce me to your friends?"

Levy gulped and managed a quick wave as he turned his attention onto her, his lips spreading into the widest grin she had ever seen.

"H-hello," she stammered out weakly, "I'm Levy, Gajeel's...Gajeel's g-girlfriend."

If it were possible, the mans grin seemed to widen.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n; *blows trumpet* let the shenanigans begin!
> 
> one of these days, i'm going to write a totally self-indulgent fic about the amazing relationship i just know the dragon parents would've had with each other - had they been humans and not dragons - one of these days
> 
> anyway, i just no igneel would be the number one embarrassing uncle out there and there is nothing anyone can say that will ever make me think otherwise - like where do you think natsu gets it from?


End file.
